SECTION V 



Floral Odours. 



(CoxTixuEi) Fiio^i Series I.) 



Rondeletia. 



This name was given by Plumier in memory of William 

 Eondelet, a famous physician and natural historian (Plumier, Xova 

 plantarum Americanarum genera, p. 15, t. 12 ; Lam. ill., t. 162 : 

 (fiertner fil, Supplementum carpologiie, t. 184), to an extensive 

 West Indian and tropical American genus of the many-seeded 

 division of CincJionacea\ Most of the species are shrubs, but a few 

 grow to the size of trees. All the Asiatic plants referred to this 

 genus are species of Wendlandia. 



The perfume sold as " Eondeletia " takes its name from this 

 plant, but is not really prepared from it, and is very inferior to 

 the fine fragrance of the flowers of several of the species. 



R. odorctta is a shrub of 5 or 6 feet in height, native of Mexico 

 and Havana, Cuba, being found on rocks by the sea-side. The 

 flowers are in terminal corymbs, very sweet-scented, of a handsome 

 scarlet colour, with the projecting ring of the tube orange-coloured. 

 Jacquin, Stirpium Americanarum historia, p. 59, t. 42. 



R. discolor, Huml)oldt, (Bompland and Kunth, Xova Plantarum, 

 iii., p. 396, t. 291, is a shrub of 4 to 6 feet in height. Its flowers 

 are pedicellate, fragi^ant, red on the outside : the lobes of the calyx 

 are ovate-lanceolate. It is a native of Xew Granada, between 

 Maraquita and Honda. Syn. Hcdiotis discolor, Sprengel, Systema 

 Yegetabilium, i., p. 411. 



R. diaper ma, Jacquin, is a tree of 15 feet in height, native of 

 South America, frequent in rocky places in the woods of Cartagena, 

 and very common in the islands of P>aru and Tierra Bomba. The 

 racemes are axillary, compound, loose, trifid. Flowers purplish- 

 white, sweet-scented. It is considered that this plant may belong- 

 to a different genus, and may be a species of Canthium. 



