6 



STATICE arborea. 



Tree Statice. 



PENTANDRIA FF.^TAGVNIA. 



Nat. ord. Plumbaginace/e. 

 STATICE. Bof. Reg.fol. 1450. 



S. arborea ; caule arborescente, foliis ovatis obtusis mucronatis basi angustatis, 

 panicula composita terminali, ramis panicula; alato-ancipitibus. Willd. 

 euum. 1. 337. R. ^ S. syst. vl. 797. 



It is hopeless in works of this kind to do justice to the 

 beauty of a plant like this ; and I am unfortunately obliged 

 to apologize for the annexed figure being even more imper- 

 fect than it need to be, owing to the want of skill of a new 

 engraver employed to execute it. This is the more vexatious 

 as the drawing which had been prepared was excellent of its 

 kind, and because the plant itself is probably the most 

 strikingly ornamental of all that are in cultivation as green- 

 house plants. At one of those great meetings in the garden 

 of the Horticultural Society, which have given so remarkable 

 an impulse to the art of gardening, there was a specimen of 

 this species, from the nursery of Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, 

 and Co. six feet high, and covered with large clusters of 

 flowers, the brilliancy of whose blue, neither precious stones 

 nor metallic preparations could even approach ; for which a 

 gold medal, an unusual mark of distinction, was awarded. 



The introduction of this noble plant to our gardens is 

 due, I believe, to P. B. Webb, Esq. When Von Buch 

 visited the Canaries he only found it in gardens about 

 Orotava, and he believed it to be extinct in its native places ; 

 and in truth it is amongst the most local and rare of all 

 known plants. It is only on a few rocks, called the islets of 



February^ 1839. n 



