fringe ; P. cynaroides (Tab. 770), with golden-edged leaves 
and pink heads half a foot in diameter; P. speciosa (Tab. 
1183), with silver-edged leaves, heads six inches long, and 
flesh-coloured bracts, with a border of black fringed with 
silver; P. latifolia (Tab. 1717), with cordate leaves bordered 
with pink, and a crown of stamens three inches high and 
six in diameter, surrounded with spreading rose-coloured 
bracts four inches long and fringed with silver. Of these 
and many other such, the present and even the past gene- 
ration of horticulturalists know absolutely nothing ; this is 
mainly due to the introduction of those improved systems 
of heating houses and that incessant watering, that favours 
soft- wooded tropical plants, and is death to the Proteas of 
South Africa and the Banksias of Australia. Nevertheless, 
that these, and many others requiring like treatment, will 
_ be re-introduced, aud:will be the wonders of the shows of 
many successive seasons, is as certain as that they once 
were the glories of the old hot-air heated kilns, that our 
forefathers called stoves, in which Orchids quickly perished, 
and Banksias and Proteas throve magnificently. 
Protea penicillata is one of the least attractive of the 
_ whole genus, and is no encouragement to the cultivators of 
the tribe ; its singular appearance and rarity being iis only 
recommendation. The plant here figured flowered in August, 
1880, and was raised from seed sent by Mr. MacOwan, late 
Principal of Gill College, Somerset East, an excellent 
botanist, to whom the Royal Gardens are indebted for 
many valuable seeds and bulbs, as well.as herbarium spe- 
cimens, and who has lately accepted the Directorship of 
the Botanical Gardens at Cape Town, which are to be 
established on a new footing. The seeds were collected on 
the Boschberg Mountains in Somerset East, at an elevation 
of 4000 feet, and the dried specimens, which correspond 
with the cultivated ones, differ from others gathered nearer 
Cape Town, in the longer styles, narrowed to the obscurely 
thickened stigma; the styles of most of Drége’s original 
specimens of P. penicillata being shorter, with decidedly 
capitate stigmas. I find, however, no other difference, and 
this may be sexual.—J. D. H., 
Fig. 1, flower; 2, base of perianth and filament; 3, anther; 4, ovary cut open, 
showing the ovule :—al/ enlarged. 
