purple. Capsule globular, obscurely three-lobed, three- 
celled, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx, 
opening with three valves, which bear the septa in the 
middle. Seeds, one or two in each cell, attached to three 
upright central plates, covered by a mucus, oval, angular. 
mbryo, with its radicle downwards, surrounded by a 
fleshy albumen. | 7 
I had lately (October, 1826) the pleasure of seeing this 
pretty plant, which has so much the habit of a Scabiosa 
or Jasione, blossoming, in great perfection, in pots, placed 
in the open air, at the garden of the Horticultural Society, _ 
at Chiswick ; where my friend Mr. Linptey pointed it out — 
to me as a species of Giuia, of which the seeds had been 
_ sent in the spring, by Mr. Davin Dove as, from the North-. 
West coast of America. In the Herbarium of Mr. Scouter, 
who accompanied the latter in his voyage to America, | 
find specimens two and three feet high, gathered in the 
same country: and that gentleman informs me, that he — 
and Mr. Dovexas found it plentifully in cultivated, and, 
especially, potatoe grounds, in the vicinity of Fort Van- 
couver, at the mouth of the Columbia. 
Upon comparing the specimens with the Gir laciniata, 
I quite agree with Mr. Linptey in considering it to belong 
to that genus ; differing only in the number of the seeds to 
each cell of the capsule, and in the stigma being some- 
times bifid, and sometimes entire. As a species, it differs 
in being glabrous, in its much smaller, sessile and crowded, — 
capitate flowers. 
The genus was established by Ruiz and Pavon, in their 
Gen. Pl. Fl. Per. et Chil. pag. 25, t.4; but Jussieu has. 
proposed uniting it, as well as Tromopsis of Micwavx, with 
Cantus, though the habit of the plants is widely different. 
In the true Giri2, perhaps, the stamens will be found to ~ 
be inserted in the axils of the segments of the corolla. | 
Fig. 1. Single flower. 2. Stamen, to shew its insertion. 3. Pistil- 
4. Capsule. 5. Transverse section of ditto. 6. Capsule in the act of burst- 
ing. 7. Capsule with the valves laid open, shewing the receptacle and seeds. — 
8. Seed cut open longitudinally, to shew the Embryo and Albumen.—All 
more or less magnified. me | 
