Tas. 4770. 
~PITCAIRNIA muscosa. 
Hoary Pitcairnia. 
Nat. Ord. Bromeniace#.—HeExanprRiA Monoeynia. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4241.) 
PrrcatRN1a muscosa ; foliis linearibus recurvatis acuminatis integerrimis inferne 
carinatis supra demum glabris subtus cauleque folioso ‘cinereo-tomentosis, 
racemo simplici, bracteis subulatis pedicellos subequantibus, floribus ap- 
proximatis rubris, calygibus coloratis, petalis subgaleatis basi nudis. 
Prrcarrnra muscosa. Martius, Fl. Bras. ined. Schultes, Syst. Veg. v. 7. p. 1240. 
Received from the Imperial Gardens of St. Petersburg, under 
the name here retained; for it seems to be identical with that 
species, published in the last volume of ‘ Schultes’ Systema Vege- 
tabilium,’ in which case it is a native of Brazil, Serra de Piedade, 
Province of Minas Geraes, Brazil. It requires the heat of the 
stove, grows in tufts, and, being a free winter flowerer, it enlivens 
the shelf with its red blossoms in mid-winter, its flowering season 
with us being the month of December. It is perhaps the smallest 
species of the genus yet known in cultivation. 
Duscr. Several plants grow together in a tufted manner. 
The eaves are principally radical, the longest of them nearly a 
span in length, linear, much and finely acuminated, quite entire, 
subcoriaceous, recurved, carinated in the lower half, when young 
all over downy, the adult ones glabrous and dark green above, 
below woolly, with a whitish or pale grey down or scurf. Sfem 
about twice as long as the longest leaves, erect, not so thick as 
a writing pen, very woolly, terete, sparingly leafy, with the leaves 
gradually smaller, and more bracteiform upwards, so as to pass 
into erect dracteas, of which those at the base of the pedicels are 
about equal in length to the pedicels. Aacemes erect, six, ten, 
or twelve-flowered. Pedicels erect, a little more than half an 
inch long. Flowers erect, or nearly so, two inches long, red. 
Calyx of three lanceolate sepals, erect, red, tipped with green, 
MARCH Ist, 1854, 
