77 



Cape bulbs has conduced so much to our knovvledo^c of these 

 beautiful things. We are most happy to give effect to Dr. 

 Herbert's recommendation, for certainly, be its name what it 

 may, it is one of the finest species we yet possess. " The 

 flowers are very much smaller than those of A. Banksiana," 

 but we are not sufficiently acquainted with the genus to be 

 able to draw up a satisfactory specific character. 



81. NAPOLEON A imperialis, 



Palisot de Beauvois Fl. d^Owave et de Benin, 2. 33. 



Among the most remarkable plants that have hitherto 

 been discovered ranks this rare species, of which living plants 

 have been lately brought from Sierra Leone by Mr. Whit- 

 field. That indefatigable collector having given me a dried 

 specimen with a seed, and the Earl of Derby having most 

 kindly placed in my hands a bottle containing the flowers in 

 different states, an opportunity has arisen for clearing up the 

 history of one of the most obscure genera in the records of 

 Systematical Botany. 



Napoleona was so named by the late M. Palisot de Beau- 

 vois, who first found it in the kingdom of Oware, in Western 

 Africa, where it was common, especially in the woods behind 

 the King of O ware's residence. From fragments preserved 

 by that naturalist a good figure, so far as general appearance 

 goes, was published ; but with extremely inaccurate and in- 

 complete details. The flowers were represented as being sky 

 blue, with a sort of 5-rayed star of a pink colour in the 

 middle, and upon the whole the account which he gave of it 

 was so unsatisfactory, that the very existence of the plant has 

 been doubted by some people. In what De Beauvois was 

 right and in what wrong, the following description will shew. 



It forms a bush about as large as a Camellia, according to 

 Mr. Whitfield. The wood is soft, whitish, with large medul- 

 lary rays, an abundance of dotted vessels, intermingled with 

 brittle acicular tubes of woody tissue, very Hke what is found 

 in the germinating radicle of a Mangrove. No hairs arc to 

 be found on any part of the plant. 



The leaves arc alternate, leathery, between three and six 

 inches long, obovate-lanceolate, tapering to an obtuse point, 



