PLATES Verge 
PROTEA CYNAROIDES. 
Tue Proteacee have their name from Proteus, because, like that ancient sea-god, the plants 
of this family put on an extraordinary variety of shapes, and yet preserve great uniformity in all 
essential characters. Thus, while the foliage, ramification, and inflorescence are multiform in 
the different genera and species, the characters of the flower and fruit are so constantly the 
same that the order may be defined in fewer words than any other family of equal extent. 
All of this group have a four-cleft flower, with four stamens, one placed opposite to each of 
the segments ; and all have a solitary carpel, tipped with a filiform style. But when we pass 
from these essential characters and attempt to describe the aspect of the plants of this family, 
we encounter that extraordinary sportiveness of form which has earned for them the name of the 
Protei of the vegetable kingdom. 
Almost all the Prorracr are natives of the Southern Hemisphere, and chiefly of Australia 
and South Africa. A few species are scattered through the cooler and more mountainous 
regions of South America; and a still smaller number are found in the North of Africa and 
Southern parts of Asia. Of the seven hundred species known to Botanists scarcely a dozen 
belong to the northern hemisphere. The Australian species are greatly more numerous than 
those of any other country, and, as might be anticipated, the genera of that country are more 
diversified and the species assume a greater variety of singular forms. With the fernlike leaves 
and golden cones and balls of the Banksias and Dryandras; the finely divided foliage and 
slender flowers of the Grevilleas and Petrophilas ; and the holly-leaved, thick fruited Hakeas, the 
contents of our conservatories render us familiar. These are all of Australian origin, but they 
afford but an imperfect notion of the character of the Australian section of the order. The 
kinds commonly seen in cultivation are shrubby or arborescent, but there are numbers that trail 
along the ground, and some (as the Conospermums) that are almost herbaceous. The leaves are 
of every conceivable form that a simple leaf can put on ;—the inflorescence is equally varied ;— 
and so is the external aspect of the fruit. Among the remarkable fruits of the Australian 
Proteacee is the famous “ wooden pear, with the stalk at the thicker end.” 
The South African genera and species are much less numerous, but scarcely less diversified in 
roy ih 
proportion to their numbers. Among them we may notice I on, Serruria and Protea. 
Leucadendron is known from all the others by having diacious flowers, and seeds lodged in 
hard cones. There are several different sorts, the largest of which is the “Silver-tree” 
(L. argenteum) ;—a tree 30 or 40 feet in height, of conical shape, with whorled branches and 
leaves of silvery whiteness. This beautiful tree grows wild on the Table Mountain, and is 
largely planted by the colonists, for the sake of its wood. In plantations it is commonly seen 
side by side with the Stone-pine, with whose dark foliage it contrasts strongly. Both trees 
have the same formal mode of growth, but are as different in colour as night and day. The 
Serrurtas ave small bushes with finely-cut leaves and heads of pink flowers often clothed with 
