120 



Sinapis frutescens seems hitherto to have been only known 

 by the specimens gathered by Masson, and preserved in the 

 Herbarium of the late Sir Joseph Banks, and from which 

 the description in the Hortus Kewensis, as well as that in 

 De Candolle's Systema, were taken. Last year, 1827, my 

 friend the Rev. R. T. Lowe was so good as to send me excellent 

 specimens from Madeira, gathered probably in the original 

 station of Masson, " in rocks by the road to Sao Vicenti 

 from the Jardin on the Curral Bridge ;" producing both 

 flowers and fruit in July. The habit, Mr. Lowe observes, is 

 different from other species of the genus Sinapis; and De 

 Candolle has doubted if the cotyledons were conduplicate. 

 They are, however, unquestionably so; and hence, as far as 

 this character is concerned, it cannot accord with Hesperis, 

 to which it had been referred in the Banksian MSS. But 

 it differs from De Candolle's Sinapis in the capitate stigma, 

 and from his and Brown's in the nearly erect calyx, which is 

 bisaccate at the base. Still I can hardly persuade myself 

 that the science would be benefitted by constituting a new 

 genus on such slight grounds. 



The species seems to be exceedingly rare. Mr. Lowe has 

 met with only one plant. " It is decidedly shrubby, with 

 long, weak, entangled branches, hanging down in a thick 

 bushy tuft from the perpendicular side of a rock. The 

 leaves are of a bright but pale green colour. The flower a 

 rather pale yellow, (by no means changeable, as De Candolle 

 suspects,) scentless, at least by day." Lowe, in Lett. 1827. 



Fig. 1, Calyx and pistil. Fig. 2, Petal. Fig. 3, Siliqua. 

 Fig. 4, Seed. Fig. 5, Embryo. Fig. 6, Embryo with the 

 cotyledons and radicle opened to show their structure 

 more distinctly : — magnified. 



