wild- HORTUS JAMAICENSIS. ?89 



cate, equal to 1ip radical leaves and like them, with embracing sheaths, not ventricose 

 at the base. Spike terminating, an inch long, ovate, acute, flowers sub-distich ; spathes 

 ovate-acuminate, scaly-tomentose all over ; petals longer than the spathes, blue ; cap- 

 sule oblong, acuminate, three-sided, smooth. This is not to he confounded with recur~ 

 vata (Sec Old Man's Beard) which has linear subulate leaves, radical peduncles, and 

 two-flowered spathes. Native of Jamaica, on old boughs of trees. Swartz. 



11. PANICflLATA. PANICLED. 



Parasitica major Join's attenualis basi ventricosis ; raceme laxo spatwso 

 assurgenti. Browne, p. 194, T. 4 

 Leaves radical, very short; culm almost naked, branches sub-divided, ascending. 

 Browne calls this the loose-headed Wild Pine. 



12. FLEXUOSA. FLEXUOSE. 



Spikes loose, flexuose, flowers distich, somewhat remote, leaves lanceolate-linear, 

 reclined - y stem sub-divided at the top. 

 Roots filiform, long, rigid ; leaves mostly radical, wider at the base, sessile, ventricose, 

 embracing, entire, loose, striated, membranaceous, beneath whitish, sub-tomentose or 

 meally with very minute scales, which are peltate and hollowed in the middle, sur- 

 rounded by hyaline striated margin, not to be distinguished without a magnifying glass. 

 Stem or scape longer than the leaves, two or three feet high, loose, round, with alter- 

 nate, lanceolate, acute, red, sheaths ; the lower ending in linear leaves -, sub-divided at 

 the top, and terminated bv two or three spikes, which are solitary, long, loose, with a 

 flexuose three-sided rachis, and alternate, distich, remotish, florets ; bractes or spathes 

 one-leafed, concave, striated. Calyx three-parted, three-cornered at the base ; seg- 

 ments erect, coloured ; petals three, linear, longer than the calyx, turned back at the tip, 

 scr.rlet or blue ; filaments alternately a little shorter, inserted into the receptacle, fili- 

 form, almost the length of the petals ; anthers ovate, bifid at the base, whitish : germ 

 ovate, three-cornered, three-keeled, three-celled, three-valved, within shining and 

 black ; seeds crowned with a capillary yellowish down. Native of Jamaica, on the 

 branches of old trees near the coast. Swartz. 



13. SETACEA. BRISTLE-LEAVED. 



Spike simple, spathes distich imbricate, leaves linear, filiform, reclined, smooth. 

 This resembles the fenuifolia, but is distinct in having the leaves reclined, and the 

 spike simple, whereas in that, the leaves are erect, the spikes many and alternate. The 

 stem a foot high and more, round, almost upright, covered from the root up to the spike 

 with alternate sub-imbricate sheaths, broad-ovate at the base, and at the end attenuated 

 into linear setaceous leaves. Radical leaves almost the length of the stem, sheathing, 

 imbricate, numerous, somewhat meally with very minute scales, ash-coloured, rigid. 

 Sheaths small, or only the base of the leaf widened. Spike terminating, undivided, 

 ovate-lanceolate, with alternate, distich flowers ; spathes wide-ovate, acuminate, mem- 

 branaceous, sub-coriaceous, equitant, capsule ovate-acuminate. Native of Jamaica on 

 Jrees. Sw#rtx. 



See Old Man's Beard. 

 Vo?- II. O o Wild- 



