flowering specimens. Some authors have expressed doubts if 
the genus Philesia be truly distinct from its near ally, Lapa- 
geria (see our Tab. 447); but however closely may be the resem- 
blance in the petals, the truly calycine character of the short 
outer perianth, the erect stem and very different foliage (much 
resembling Luzuriaga), and the monadelphous stamens, will surely 
keep them distinct. The species proves quite hardy with Mr. 
Veitch at Exeter: it remains to be ascertained if it will prove so 
about London. 
Descr. An erect, much branching, fruticose or suffruticose 
plant, three to four feet high in its native country. We have 
flowering specimens before us varying from four inches to a foot 
and a half, much branched; dranches alternate, principal ones 
as well as the stem naked below, terete, and scaly with brown 
lanceolate scales at the joint; dranchlets angular, green, here and 
there scaly. eaves alternate, varying on different. plants from 
an inch to an inch and a half long, petioled, linear-oblong, coria- 
ceous, evergreen, penninerved, glabrous, mucronate, glaucous 
beneath, the margins reflexed. Pefiole articulated at the setting 
on of the leaf, and the leaf is often deciduous there, leaving the 
persistent short petiole. Peduncles exceedingly short, terminal 
on. the branches, bracteated at the base of the flower. PVower 
_ Solitary, drooping, large. Calya nearly three-quarters of an inch 
long, of three, oblong, rather obtuse, inbricating, appressed sepals, 
concave, scariose. Corolla two or two and a quarter inches long, 
erecto-campanulate, petals obovato-oblong, mucronulate, bright 
rose-red, somewhat waxy, equal, concave, when dry veiny, the base 
united ; each having within a hard oblong depressed gland or nec- 
tary. Stamens springing from the base of the petals. laments 
united into a tube below the middle, then free, erect, equal, a little 
shorter than the petals. Anthers erect, subsagittate. Ovary 
small, oval-trigonal, one-celled, with three short parietal placenta, 
which bear several ovules. Style a little longer than the stamens, 
_ rather thick. Stigma depresso-capitate, the recurved margin ob- 
soletely three-lobed. Fruit an oval-subglobose, mucronated Jerry, 
rough on the surface from the many seeds within. 
Ld 
_ Fig. 1. Leaves. 2. Stamens springing from the base of the corolla, and 
pistil. 3. Base of a petal, showing the nectary. 4. Pistil. 5. Transverse sec- 
tion of ovary (all more or less magnified). 6. Berry :—magnijied. . 
