, 
Tas. 6557, 
MELIANTHUS TRIMENIANUS. 
Native of South Africa. 
Nat. Ord. Saprnpace®.—Tribe MELIANTHE®. 
Genus Metianraus, Linn.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. vol. i. p- 411.) 
Mettanruvs (Diplerisma) Zrimenianus; foliolis linearibus loriformibus marginibus 
revolutis integerrimis v. obtuse serratis subtus albo-villosis, stipulis subulatis, 
racemis erectis, floribus verticillatis coccineis, petaloram unguibus ad com- 
missuras villosis ceteram glaberrimis, capsula glabra tetraptera. 
M. Trimenianus, Hook. f. in Trimen Journ. Bot. N.S. vol. ii. p. 353, t. 138. 
For a knowledge of this singular and beautiful plant I 
am indebted to Sir Henry Barkly, K.C.B., who, when 
Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, discovered it during 
a visit to Little Namaqua Land, a district bordering the 
Atlantic to the northward of the Cape Colony, from whence 
he sent to me dried specimens, together with a drawing by 
Lady Barkly, as a new species of Melianthus, with scarlet 
flowers. These specimens, together with ripe seeds from 
which the plants in the Royal Gardens are now growing, 
enabled me to describe the plant fully in Trimen’s Botanical 
Journal cited above, where I took the opportunity of dis- 
cussing its affinity with the beautiful Greyia Sutherlandi 
(Tab. 6040) and strengthening my reasons for regarding 
both these anomalous genera as referable to the natural 
family of Sapindacee. 
The seeds of M. Trimenianus germinated readily, but 
the plants kept in the conservatory at Kew made slow 
progress compared with one which was sent to Mr. Han- 
bury’s garden at Mortola, near Mentone, on the Riviera, 
where it flowered for the first time and fruited in 1879, 
when the fruiting spike figured at B was kindly sent to me 
by Mr. Thomas Hanbury, through the post-office. In 
December, 1880, it again flowered at Mortola, and Mr. 
Hanbury sent me the fine raceme figured here; it 
flowered at Kew for the first time early in the same year, 
but very poorly in comparison. In its native country 
M. Trimenianus is an erect shrub, two or three feet high; 
MaY Ist, 1881. 
