Descr. A Tree of large size, from fifty to sixty feet 
high, with a ¢runk often more than two feet in diameter : 
the wood is soft; the branches spreading, covered with a 
smooth bark. Leaves most copious at the extremities of 
the branches, eight to ten inches long, broadly lanceolate 
approaching to cuneate, shortly acuminate, membrana- 
ceous, very obscurely toothed ; veins oblique, reticulated 
with nerves. Petioles about an inch long, downy. Racemes 
one to three feet in length, produced on the former year’s 
branches, and upon different parts of the trunk, bearing a 
great many, sometimes a hundred flowers ; of a very large 
size, and no less splendid in colour. The buds shortly 
before expansion are about the size of a medlar; they open 
slowly, two or three in a morning, and falling off in the 
evening, and are highly fragrant. At the base of the flower 
are two opposite, oblong, deciduous bracteas. The calyx- 
tube is turbinate, adherent with the germen or ovary, its 
limb of six rounded, minutely ciliated lobes. Corolla of 
six (rarely seven) coriaceous, unequal, imbricated, subor- 
bicular, but much waved and concave petals, yellowish on 
the outside with a tinge of red, crimson-lilac within, spread- 
ing horizontally. In the centre of this corolla, and around 
the upper part of the pistil, is a remarkable staminiferous 
ligule or nectary : it is a large, fleshy, exactly circular disk, 
densely covered with short, upright, fleshy, yellowish sta- 
mens, one side of which is prolonged into a broad, strap- 
shaped, fleshy ligule, folded or doubled upon itself, the ex- 
tremity of which on the upper side is thickly clothed with 
numerous longer, red, fleshy stamens. These stamens seem 
to be the most perfect. The filaments are cylindrical. The 
anthers subglobose, two-celled. Those of the circular disk, 
besides being smaller and of a different colour, have the 
filaments clavate ; those of the centre appear to be abortive. 
The greater portion of the pistil is inferior, the upper OT free 
portion, which may, perhaps, be considered the style, 3s 
age and hemispherical : the stigma of six, appressed rays. 
€ Germen appears to have six cells: but if examin 
carefully, it will be found that there are six, arrow-shaped 
(viewed when cut transversely) receptacles, arising from pa- 
rietes and meeting in the centre, and that each of the barbs 
(if I may so term them,) bears several ovules, especially 0? 
its inner edge. When the germen is a little swollen, a the 
petals with the staminiferous ligule have fallen away, there 
will be seen a transverse constriction in the free portion of 
the pistil, between the insertion of the limb of the calyx ee 
