In every thing except beauty it is extremely interesting. 

 It is a plant botanically allied to Correa, and Boronia, without 

 any external resemblance to those plants ; it has the arrange- 

 ment of parts found in Composite genera without any sort of 

 affinity to them ; and finally it is an apetalous genus among 

 polypetalous ones. 



The inflorescence, in which this singular organization 

 resides, is a true capitulum, surrounded by an involucrum of 

 several series. Within the latter are collected many flowers, 

 which are so pressed upon one another that no room is left for 

 the development of calyx or corolla as separate organs, and 

 consequently those parts are equally reduced to scales, and 

 blended tog-ether till thev can be no longer distinguished; 

 their number however is by no means five, as is generally de- 

 scribed ; on the contrary, they are more than ten or some 

 higher number than five. So of the stamens ; their number 

 is said by Botanists to be ten, but they exist to the extent of 

 even fifteen, as is shewn in the accompanying figure. The 

 fact being that the plant varies in this respect. 



In the analyses shown in the accompanying plate, fig. 1. 

 represents a single flower extracted from the involucre ; 2. is 

 a stamen ; 3. represents the ovary with its style and stigma ; 

 4. is a cross section of the ovary, and 5. one of the starry hairs 

 with which all the green parts are covered. 



The name borne by this plant is in allusion to its having 

 two coverings for the flowers ; one the involucrum, which 

 protects all the flowers externally ; and the other the scales 

 which surround the base of the stamens. It is compounded 

 of 8i7r\oo? double and yXouva a cloak. 



A rather robust hardy greenhouse shrub, requiring the 

 same treatment as the Correas, and like them increased by 

 cuttings of half-ripe wood, treated in the ordinary way and 

 covered w T ith a bell-glass. The plant flowers during the early 

 part of summer. 



