[Prate 80.] 
THE MANY-SPIKED BILLBERGIA. 
(BILLBERGIA? POLYSTACHYA.) 
ل‎ MUERE 
A handsome evergreen Hothouse Perennial, Belonging to BRowELIADS, from BRAZIL. 
Specific Character. 
THE MANY-SPIKED BILLBERGIA. Leaves chan- | BILLBERGIA? POLYSTACHYA ; foliis canaliculatis 
nelled, with spiny teeth, curved back at the point, inflated spinoso-dentatis apice recurvis basi ventricosis scapo 
at the base, shorter than the scape. Spike conical, many- brevioribus, spici conicA polystachyá farinosá, bracteis 
ranked, mealy.  Braets roundish, aeuminate, closely subrotundis acuminatis arcté imbricatis. 
imbricated. 
(JUE knowledge of this beautiful plant is very imperfect. A specimen in flower was exhibited by 
M. de Jonghe, of Brussels, at one of the Meetings last year in the Garden of the Horticultural 
Society, as a new species of Billbergia. Having been afterwards removed we had no opportunity of 
describing it, and are only now able to make it known by means of a coloured drawing which 
accompanied the specimen. 
It is no doubt a Brazilian plant, and seems nearly related to Lemaire’s Billbergia rhodocyanea, 
another charming species, figured in the Flore des Serres, vol. ii., p. 207, with long loose stiff 
spiny-toothed crimson bracts, bright blue corollas, and broad blunt dark green leaves banded with 
white. That plant flowered with Mr. Van Houtte, but has not appeared in our gardens. 
