1849.] Linnean Society. 19 



clegans." At Sion House there is a remarkably fine plant of this 

 species, called there " Encephalartus Caffrorum." 



Probably no finer specimens of E. Caffer have ever been known 

 than two, which are at Chatsworth. They were sent to the Duke 

 of Devonshire's collection by the late Baron Ludwig, from his own 

 garden at the Cape of Good Hope, together with all the Chatsworth 

 specimens of this genus, excepting that already mentioned, which 

 was brought from Walton-on-Thames. These two plants cannot be 

 less than 100 years old. 



On a close examination of the cicatrices, which are arranged in 

 spirals on their trunks, appearances present themselves which make 

 it probable, that not the leaflets only, but the leaves also are articu- 

 lated. Many of these cicatrices are concave, smooth within, but 

 showing the marks of bundles of vessels, which have closed after 

 the separation of the petioles. Although, therefore, the longevity of 

 these leaves is certainly very great, as it is in all Cycadete, yet they 

 appear to have their natural term of life, perhaps ten years or more ; 

 after which they are thrown oflf by an effort of the plant resembling 

 that which in common cases takes place every year. 



One of these two specimens is a female, and having recently borne 

 fruit, requires a more detailed description. 



The cone made its first appearance in the spring of 1847. In the 

 following September it had attained so great a size, that it was 

 thought desirable to take a cast of it in plaster, and models, made 

 from this cast, are now in the museum at Kew, in the collections of 

 the British Museum and of the Linnean Society, and in other col- 

 lections both public and private. At the time when the cast was 

 taken, the prevailing colour of the cone was a dark shining green, 

 the pyramidal extremities of the rhomboids being of a lemon-yellow, 

 streaked with brown. These colours were afterwards blended or 

 changed, so that the surface of the cone assumed a pretty uniform 

 bronze colour. 



For a long time the cone was as compact as possible ; but at the 

 end of the year a fissure might be discerned round the base of some 

 of the pyramids, especially of those near the top of the cone. The 

 cone had then become twice as large as it was in September. But 

 the rhomboids which terminated the scales, rising in the form of 

 truncated and tuberculated pyramids, had increased much less in the 

 upper part of the cone than in the lower. Accordingly the scales 

 in the upper part, extending a fourth of the way down the axis, were 

 afterwards found to be barren. Moreover, as the rhomboids in the 



