green, perfectly smooth; at the base of each pinna is usually a small 
stipellary spine, and at the base of each leaflet a minute setaceous 
stipella, which is also occasionally slightly spinescent. FLoweErs in 
long loose terminal racemes. Pepicexts from one to three inches 
long, somewhat glaucous as well as the axis, and usually furnished at 
the base with a small spinescent bract, but bearing no bracteole. 
Catyx smooth, the divisions reddish and somewhat waved on the 
margin, about half the length of the petals. Prtats of a rich orange 
scarlet, the four larger ones three quarters of an inch long, broadly 
obovate, waved on the edges, and narrowed into a claw; fifth petal on 
a long stiff thick claw, with a very small, round, waved lamina. 
STAMENS more than twice the length of the corolla, crimson, thread- 
like, slightly dilated and hairy at the base. Ovary perfectly smooth, 
n a short stalk, linear, terminating in a long filiform style, Pop 
about three inches long, smooth, and flat, opening in two valves, and 
fitted between the seeds with a cellular substance dividing it into 
several cells. 
Porutar aNp Grocrapuica. Notice. This beautiful shrub, which 
appears to row wild in the tropical regions of both hemispheres, is at 
any rate common in all civilised parts of the tropics, in hedges and 
gardens, of which it is one of the greatest ornaments. In the West 
Indies, where it is most abundant, it is one of the most usual hedge 
shrubs, and is also used medicinally instead of Senna. 
Deserving, however, as this plant is of the specific name pulcherrima, 
there are many others of the same genus, or those lately separated 
from it, which it would be highly desirable to introduce into our 
conservatories, now that by the increased size and light given to these 
buildings there is a hope of seeing them flower. There are few species 
with the flowers so large as the present one, but judging from dried 
specimens this is fully made up, especially in some of the American 
ones, by their great profusion. Most of them require perhaps stove 
heat, but some, especially the Coulterias, are far from being so tender. 
At Barcelona, some years since, in a half abandoned botanic garden, 
was a beautiful tree of Coulteria tinctoria, thriving, in Spite of neglect, 
in the open air, together with Schinus molle, some Cassias, and many 
other trees of the class of those which require with us the protection of 
a wall in winter. 
There is a considerable difficulty in the present state of our know- 
ledge of the immediate allies of the Cesalpinia pulcherrima, in fixing 
precisely the genus in which it should be included. It has been usual, 
