384 Dr Graham's List of "B are Plants. 



Seeds erect, compressed, almond-shaped, covered with a tliick brown 

 testa, having copious albumen and a central embryo, which is slightly 

 curs'cd, and passes from side to side of the greatest breadth of the 

 seed, and from one extremity to the other. 

 This, notwithstanding its insignificant flowers, is a handsome evergreen, 

 but will not endure our climate, even with the protection of a wall. 

 Wo have three varieties, all free growing, differing cliiefly in the 

 breadth of the leaf and the depth of the serratures, but though grow- 

 ing in different degi-ees of heat, not, I think, varying from this cause. 

 We are indebted for the possession of the plants to Captain Macadam, 

 Koyal Marines, who sent seeds from the Cape of Good Hope to the 

 Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, in October 1828. The plant in 

 common cultivation as Elrcodendron Capense, is nothing else than a 

 narrow-leaved variety of the common Bay. How this blunder came 

 to be made and diffused I cannot conjecture. 



Grevillea dubia. 



G. dubia, foliis ellipticis, marginibus refractis ; ramis ramulisque to- 

 mentosis, floriferis racemoque abbreviato-recurvis ; pistillis uncia 

 brevioribus. — Brown. 

 Grevillea dubia, Broum in Linn. Trans, x. 169. Ibid. Prodr. i. 376. 

 Roem. et Schultes, Syst. Veget. iii. 410.— Bot. Mag. 3798. 

 Description, — Shrub (5 feet high) erect, with pendulous branches, 

 twigs covered with brownish pubescence, hairs adpressed, attached 

 by the middle. Leaves elliptical or obovato-elliptical, mucronulate, 

 spreading, having adpressed pubescence similar to that on the twigs 

 on both sides, but silky and chiefly abundant below, lateral nerves 

 near the margins. Racemes short, dense, terminal, becoming lateral 

 and opposite to the leaves from the prolongation of the branches. 

 Bracts subulate, falling very early. Flowers rose-coloured, geminate, 

 on recurved pedicels, the lowest expanding first ; perianth pubescent 

 on the outside, 4-phyllous, united in the throat by a dense tuft of 

 white wool less than half the length of the revolute limb, which on 

 the inside is glabrous. Stamens small, white, sessile in the apices of 

 the perianth. Pistil pedicellate, including the pedicel less than eight 

 lines long, surrounded at its base on the lower side by a pale semi- 

 lunar disk, everywhere glabrous, except at the top of the style, where 

 it is slightly pubescent, stigma oblique, flat ; germen green, obscurely 

 furrowed above and below. 

 Mr Brown considers this plant scarcely specifically distinct from his Gre- 

 villea punicea ; Roemer and Schultes repeat the doubt, and Sprengel 

 unites them ; but these writers have probably no additional information 

 on the subject. A specimen which I received from New Holland with- 

 out name, in 1824, and which I considered G. punicea, is distinguished 

 from this by its leaves being broader, larger, and minutely dotted, but 

 otherwise glabrous on the upper surface, where also the marginal 

 nerves are less conspicuous ; the raceme, too, is less dense, and the 

 style longer. Our plant was raised at the Botanic Garden, Edin- 

 burgh, from seeds sent by Mr Cunninghame as a new species, and 

 has flowered freely in the end of the season during several years. The 

 figure in the Botanical Magazine is excellent. 



Musa superba. 



M. superba, subacaulis; spica nutante, bracteis cordato-ovatis, concavis, 

 obtusis, inferioribus persistentibus ; perianthii labio superiore 3-par- 

 tito, lateribus revolutis ; labio inferiore multo breviore, 3-lobo, lobo 



