Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 349 



The common primrose willow CJussiaea erecla) is 

 a slender branching shrub, from a foot to six feet 

 high, distinguished by its linear-lanceolate leaves 

 and four-petalled yellow flowers about the size of a 

 "bit," with one of the four points of the calyx showing 

 between each petal ; the stalks turn red as the plant 

 matures. Two kinds of greater primrose willows are 

 found near town, with flowers as big as a shilling, and 

 elongated seed-capsules an inch to an inch and a half 

 long ; the largest kind (J. nervosa) is sometimes called 

 yellow loose-strife. -* 



At the top of the Gardens the common convolvulus or 

 wild-potato (Ipom,ra fastigiata) is frequent on the 

 bushes, its flowers pale purple with a darker centre ; 

 and the creamy-yellow miama is generally in flower : in 

 the trenches we shall see the leaves if not the flower of 

 the large white water-lily, the little yellow blossoms of the 

 blanket-weed, and generally the fine lilac spikes of the 

 greater pontederia. On the dam of the Lamaha several 

 noticeable flowers will be found without going more than 

 fifty yards either way : the wild starch (Heliconia psitta- 

 corum), with its glossy glaive-shaped leaves and orange- 

 red flowers, sheathed in bracts of the same colour and 

 tipped with blackish marks : the red and yellow tassels 

 of the wild coffee bush (Paliconrea aurantiaca), formed 

 by red flower-stalks and waxy yellow tubular flowers, 

 which are succeeded by a cluster of purple-black berries : 

 here and there the tall straight stems, with dull purplish 

 foxglove-like flowers, of the strong-scented sesamum, 

 zezegany, vanglo, or wangilla (Sesamiun indicum) — 

 more common on the Race Course road, — which produces 

 the oily seeds called sesame, whose name opened the cave 



