84 



ratlier more than half their length. The seeds are scohiform, 

 quite smooth, not at all reticulated, with a lax testa, which is 

 prolonged at each end into a tapering withered sac, but fits 

 pretty tight to the seed in the middle. Each seed, including 

 its testa, is rather more than half a line long. 



134. COTYLEDON cristata. Haworthin Phil. Mag. 1827. p. 123. DC. 

 prodr. 3. 399. 



For this little known plant I am obliged to William Brent, 

 Esq. of Walworth, who obtained it from the Botanical Gar- 

 den of Ley den, and succeeded in flowering it. It is very 

 well described by Haworth, so far as his account of it goes; 

 but since M. DeCandolle regarded it as one of the species in- 

 sufficiently known, it deserves to be noticed more particularly. 

 The stem is very short, and closely covered with leaves, 

 from between the touching bases of which there proceeds a 

 number of light brown tlireads, described by Haworth as 

 rufous hairs, but in reality withered roots, emitted by the 

 leaves, but perishing after exposure to the air. The leaves 

 themselves have a singular form ; they are described techni- 

 cally as being wedge-shaped, triangular, stalked, and ter- 

 minated by a curled crest ; but in more homely terms they 

 look very like a jelly-bag, or a filter sewed up at the upper 

 edge, and thrown on its side so as to acquire a flattened 

 figure ; they are covered with very short hairs, which are 

 obtuse, and placed perpendicularly upon the epidermis, so 

 that the leaves have a surface like that of fine woollen cloth. 

 I find nothing like the furfuraceous hairiness described by 

 Haworth, who mistook for scurfiness a great number of pallid 

 specks, indicating subcutaneous air chambers, with which the 

 epidermis is thickly studded. The flowering stem is an erect 

 spike, about three feet high, covered with close-pressed slen- 

 der green flowers, tipped with pink, about half an inch long, 

 and rather longer than the internodes. The corolla is com- 

 pletely monopetalous, the limb only, which is revolute, being 

 divided into five segment^. The stamens grow to the sides 

 of the corolla, those opposi^te the petals being a little longer 

 than the others. The carpels are distinct, slender, rather 

 downy near the base ; the scales beneath them are white, and 

 emarginate. 



The plant is a very curious species, but it has nothing 

 beautiful in its appearance. 



