102 Cycas revoluta Tliunb. 



[Of living species of plants of the order Cycadeae, 26 are 

 registered in Loudon's Hortus Britannicus, p. 403., as having 

 been introduced into Britain ; and this generalisation on the 

 species of the order Cycadeae is presented in p. 535. of that 

 work. " All are natives of countries beyond the reach of 

 frosts, chiefly of the Cape of Good Hope and equinoctial 

 America. With a low trunk, which rarely exceeds the height 

 of a few inches, they have the fronds and appearance of pygmy 

 palms, and the inflorescence of gigantic equisetums. The 

 trunk of Cycas contains a great quantity of faecula, which is 

 manufactured into a kind of spurious sago." 



In the Encyclopaedia of Plants are figures of 4 species of 

 Zamia, and figures of Cycas circinalis L., female, as to its 

 fruit-bearing spadix and the fruit upon it, and part of a frond. 

 C. circinalis is registered in both works as native of India, 

 and first brought to Britain in 1700. Of C. revoluta Thun- 

 berg, another species, registered in both as native of China, 

 and first brought to Britain in 1737, there is a figure of a 

 plant of the male sex of, in Gard. Mag., iv. 162., which is 

 here introduced (Jig. 18.), and on which the following in- 

 formation is deduced from the account in p. 161 — 163. The 

 plant represented was at Cally, in Kirkcudbrightshire, on 

 April 4. 1828, and then in flower there for the second time: 

 it had flowered there, for the first time, in June 1826. At 

 the date of its second flowering it was reputed to have been 

 at Cally upwards of 30 years, and that its age must exceed 

 40 years. The tub in which the plant was growing was 2 ft. 

 in depth, and 6 ft. 6 in. in circumference. The stock or stem 

 of the plant was 1 ft. 6 in. high from the surface of the soil 

 in the tub, and 2 ft. 6 in. in circumference; covered with the 

 remains, of a dark-brown colour, of the different crops of 

 fronds. The fronds are produced at the summit of the stock 

 or stem. Those of the last crop w r ere 36 in number, in length 

 4 ft. 6 in., and in circumscription of the spread of the whole, 

 27 ft. : in colour of a fine dark green, the rachises or ribs 

 rather lighter than the pinnae or leaflets : the fronds of the 

 previous crop had been all cut off. The catkin, which rose 

 perpendicularly out of the apex of the stem, had a very short 

 footstalk, thinly set round with leathery spathulate scales, 

 of a dusky orange colour; was in height 2 ft. 10 in., and at 

 the greatest circumference 1 ft. 3 in. tapering from about half 

 way up to the top. It was set round with about 1500 of these 

 scales, regularly imbricated, which radiated from the centre. 

 The one shown in the figure (a, b) is of the full size, a the 

 breadth, b a side view taken from the bottom of the catkin ; 

 the others gradually diminish in size towards its top. The 



