20 THE MOREL BILLBERGIA. 
certain Tillandsias destitute of spiny teeth ; but the flower-stem, turned back, branching, and furnished 
at the upper end with large bright rose-coloured delicate and semi-transparent bracts, covered with a 
white mealy powder, immediately distinguishes it. From the axil of these bracts spring the flowers, 
which are slightly irregular, of a pure violet colour, rendering this species one of the most beautiful 
ornamental plants of our hot-houses. M. Morel cultivates it in baskets, hung up, and filled with 
peat earth covered with P en aco which retains the freshness of the soil, and at the same time 
indicates the moisture of the house.” 
We find no other notice of the plant. The specimen now represented was flowered in the 
garden of the Horticultural Society, where it had been received from M. Keteler, of Paris, in 1848, as - 
a fine variety of Billbergia zebrina. In February last we observed it in flower with Messrs. E. G. 
Henderson and Co., of the Wellington Nursery, St. John’s Wood, who obtained it from M. Morel 
himself. ‘ 
As to Billbergia zebrina, of which it has been supposed to be a variety, it is enough to observe 
that the ovaries and sepals of that plant are closely coated with white meal, and the stamens twice 
as long as in the plant before us, to say nothing of the leaves of Billbergia zebrina being spiny 
to their points, and the bracts by no means so richly tinted. 
