VOL. LVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 403 



feet. Two of these columns seemed perfectly erect and perpendicular, 3 of them 

 oblique, and one approached somewhat towards a pyramidal form. 



XIF'. A Description of the Andrachne,* with its Botanical Characters. By 



G. D. Ehret, F. R. S. p. 1 14. 



From a short and crooked stem go off irregularly several branches bending in 

 various directions ; but the younger shoots mostly pointing upwards. The height 

 of the shrub is now about 4 feet. The stem and branches are of different colours 

 at different seasons. In the spring, they appear of a greenish cinnamon colour : 

 this is gradually heightened to almost a red during winter ; towards the end of 

 which, the epidermis peels off, and the new bark exhibits the like appearance as 

 it had the spring before. On the extremities of these branches, the shoots of 

 the preceding year, which are of a deep red colour, are many leaves of different 

 sizes, placed irregularly ; the largest leaves were in length, when the figure was 

 drawn, about 4 inches, and 2 inches and a half in breadth, of an oval figure : 

 they are mostly entire, though the edges of some are lightly serrated : their sur- 

 fece is smooth and lively, but not glossy or shining. They are supported on the 

 branches by footstalks about an inch long, of a red colour and smooth. The 

 young leaves, at their first appearance, are of a faintish green with a cast of 

 yellow yet beautifully shaded with red : their footstalks and middle rib are then 

 hoary, but they lose this appearance as they grow older. 



This very rare shrub produced its flowers, for the first time in England, in the 

 garden of Dr. John Fothergill, at Upton near Stratford in Essex, May 1766. 

 The principal spikes of flowers in this species of arbutus are erect, producing 

 many side ones in a horizontal direction, their extremities inclining downwards. 

 Each of these simple ramifications contain many white globular flowers, hanging 

 on long hoary glutinous pedunculi, which are situated alternately. These spikes 

 of flowers, forming a kind of loose tuft with the bright bunches of leaves, have 

 an elegant appearance. 



It seems worthy of observation, that the plants raised by the gardeners by 

 grafting or inarching the andrachne on the common arbutus, which is the 

 method chiefly used in propagating this elegant shrub, differ considerably from 

 the plants raised from seed, particularly in this, that the young branches, and 

 the footstalks of the leaves, are very hairy, and the leaves themselves are all with- 

 out exception deeply serrated like the arbutus. Dr. Russell also says, that the 

 outer bark of the old stem and branches abroad, are for some months of the year 

 of as beautiful a crimson, as the young shoots are here described to be, and 

 doubts not but it will be so in this country, as the shrub grows older. 



• Arbntut Andrachne. Linn. 

 3 P 2 



