having glabrous leaves, but ou close examination they are 

 found to be more or less furnished with long, exceedingly 

 fine hairs, which sometimes persist a season or more, 

 sometimes fall very soon. 



Descr. — A robust, evergreen shrub, sometimes attaining 

 a height of seven or eight feet, but usually less. Branches 

 thick, at first pubescent, and at the same time furnished 

 with long, thin, deciduous hairs, and densely clothed with 

 needle-like leaves, resembling those of a small Pinus. 

 Leaves spirally arranged, one to one and a half inch 

 long, rigid, straight or curved, sharp-pointed, at first 

 more or less furnished with long, very thin, almost in- 

 visible hairs, but soon quite glabrous. Floivers crimson, 

 one and a third to one and a half of an inch long, 

 sessile, in small clusters on the previous year's branches. 

 Calyx densely woolly, four-lobed ; lobes ovate. Petals one 

 to four, small and scale-like. Stamens forming the 

 most conspicuous part of the flower, numerous ; filaments 

 crimson, connate the greater part of their length in four 

 flattened clusters; anthers yellow. Capsule sessile but 

 not immersed in the branch, persistent long after the seeds 

 have fallen out, becoming quite glabrous, nearly globose 

 or elliptical, one half to three-quarters of an inch long, 

 woody and very hard ; two opposite calyx-lobes grow out 

 and are incurved, giving them the appearance of a parrot's 

 beak. — J. I). H. 



Fig. 1, a leaC; 2, section of calyx with gynaeceum; 3, a petal; 4, a cluster of 

 stamens in bud; 5, the same fully developed -.—all enlarged. 



