O S T 



the leaves wider, yellowish : panicle large, with 

 shorter awns : the seed oblong, largish, glutinous, 

 usually very white. This is cultivated both in 

 wet mid dry places. 



It varies' with a black seed, which is higher 

 flavoured, and also with a red seed. 



There are other varieties. 



O S T 



lono- and narrow, and set on without any order : 

 the flowers are produced singly at the ends of the 

 shoots ; they are all yellow, and appear in .July 

 and August.' It is a native of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, flowering from February to October. 



The second" species has the angles of the 

 branches toot'r.leted by the back or the peti- 



te— These plants maybe increased by oles running down, and are frqgiiendy wholly 



seeds in the early spring. involved in w ool, winch disappears with age : the 



The seeds should be sown on a hot-bed, and leaves are wedge-form, erose : the peduncles 



when the plants are come up, be transplanted scaly: the flowers small : the seeds obovate : 



into pots filled with rich light earth, and placed the stem four or five feet high dividing into many 



in nans of water, which should be plunged into branches towards the top, which spread out flat 



a hot-bed- and as the water wastes, it must he on every side ; they have a purplish bark. It 



renewed from time to time. Thev must be kept produces tufts ot yellow flowers at the extremity 



in the stove all the summer, and towards the end of the shoots, from spring to autumn 

 of August they will produce the grain, which The third rises with a shrubby stalk seven or 



will ripen tolerably well, provided the autumn 

 prove favourable for the plants. 



They afford variety in the hot-housecollections. 



OSIEK. SeeSALix. 



OSTEOSPERMUM, a genus comprising 

 plants of the shrubby exotic kind for the green- 

 house. 



It belongs to the class and order Syngeiwsia 

 Polysomia Necessaria, and ranks in the natural 

 order of Compoiitce Discoidea 



eight feet high, covered with a smooth gray 

 bark, and dividing into several branches : the 

 leaves alternate, of a thick consistence, covered 

 with a hoary down, which goes off from the 

 older leaves, , unequally indented on their edges : 

 the flowers are in clusters at the ends of the 

 branches, six or eight coming out together on pe- 

 tioles an inch and half long, of a yellow colour. 



It seldom flowers in this climate; but the time 

 of its flowering is July or August. 



The fourth species has three small branches 



The characters are: that the calyx is common, 



simple, hemispherical, many leaflets awl-shaped, the leaves small, oblong, sessile, on some ot the 



small • the corolla is compound, rayed : the co- upper branches imbricate : the flowers come out 



rollets hermaphrodite very many, 'in the disk : at the end of the branches, standing singly on 



females about ten in the ray : proper of the her- 

 ' maphrodite tubular, five-toothed, the length of 

 the calyx : of the female ligulatc, linear, three- 

 toothed, very long: the stamina in the herma- 

 phrodites have five capillary filaments, very 

 short : anther cylindrical, tubulous ; the pistil 



peduncles about an inch long. 



The fifth is an undershrub, three feet high, 

 with a strong smell : the root woody, branching, 

 fibrous : the stem somewhat woody, erect, round, 

 regularly branched, gray : the leaves alternate, 

 spreading : segments alternate, (some almost 



ium in the hermaphrodites has the germ very opposite,) oblong, acute, serrate; the lower si- 



small : style filiform, scarcely the length of the 

 stamens: stisrma obsolete :— in the females, germ 

 globular: style filiform, the length of the sta- 

 mens : stigma cmarginate : there is no pericar- 

 pium : calyx unchanged : the seeds in the her- 

 maphrodites none: — in the females solitary, sub- 

 globular, coloured, at length hardened, inclosing 

 a kernel of the same shape : pappus none : the 

 receptacle is naked and flat. 



The species cultivated are: 1. 0. sphiosmn, 

 Prickly Osteospermum ; 2. 0. pisiferum, 

 Smooth Osteospermum; 3. 0. monilifemm, 

 Poplar-Leaved Osteospermum ; 4. 0. poly 

 gahides ; 5. 0. cterukinn, 

 Osteospermum 



nuses wider, deeper, parallel to the midrib ; the 

 upper ones rounded ; they are without veins, and 

 have only one nerve prominent beneath ; are of 

 the same colour on both sides, and fragrant, from 

 an inch and a half to two inches in length, and 

 fifteen lines in breadth: the flowers terminating, 

 very loosely corymbed, peduncled, erect, blue, 

 an inch wide. It is a native of the Cape. 



Culture. — These plants mav be increased by 

 cuttings of the young shoots, which may be 

 planted in any of the summer months, upon a 

 bed of light earth, being watered and shaded 

 until they have taken root, when they must be 

 Blue -flowered taken up and planted out separately in pots ; as 

 when they are suffered to stand long, they are 



Thc'first is a low shrubby plant, which sel- apt to make strong vigorous shoots, and be dirH- 



dom rise;, above three feet high, and divides into cult to transplant afterward, especially the second 



many branches : the ends of the shoots are beset and third sorts ; but there is not so much danger 



with green branching spines : the leaves are very of the first, which is not so vigorous, nor so easy 



clammy, especially fn warm weather; they are in taking root as the other. In the summer season 



