usually downy and more or less covered with stiff appressed hairs, of 
a light green when fresh, whitish when dry, two or three inches in 
length. Racemes terminal, simple, often attaining a foot in length. 
consisting of a series of false whorls or verticillasters of six to ten 
flowers each, and placed at intervals of from half an inch to an inch 
or more.» FLoRAL LEAVES resembling bracts, sessile, broadly ovate 
with a long point, entire, concave, membranous, smooth, of a light 
green, longer than the calyx, and forming a tuft at the top of the 
young spike, but always falling off before the flowers expand. TRUE 
BRACTS none. PEDICELS erect, about two lines long, simple, one- 
flowered. Catyx resembling those of the Basil, nodding, bell-shaped, 
more .or less violet coloured and covered with stiff hairs, the upper 
division broad, ovate, and pointed, the four lower ones lanceolate, 
pointed, and nearly equal to each other. Coro.za of a violet blue, 
often more or less mixed with white; the tube slightly gibbous on the 
under side at the base, bent downwards at a right angle where it leaves 
the calyx, and dilated into a short broad throat; the upper lip broad, 
short, bent back, emarginate or with four very short obtuse teeth, 
_ marked in front with an orange spot; the lower lip nearly horizontal, 
large, boat-shaped, pointed and entire. Styie shortly and equally 
bifid at the extremity. CARPELS very smooth. 
Popuxar anp Geocrapuicat Notice. This plant belongs to a 
very numerous group among the Labiate, natives of the hotter part of 
the old world, with a very few species scattered over tropical America, 
and ce as far as were known in the days of Linneus, were collected 
by tl t under the Hailie of Ocimum; but as the ten or eleven 
species ‘Hiwa to him have gradually increased to above a hundred 
and sixty, various divisions of the group have been proposed, and they 
now constitute twelve genera, which appear to be better characterized 
and more natural than many of our old European genera of Labiate. 
Indeed, were the slight modifications derived from the calyx and 
bracts, which have alone served as the basis of many of the Linnean 
characters, to be applied to the Asiatic and African Ocimoidez, the 
present number of their genera would be again doubled, at the least. 
Coleus, to which the present species belongs, contains above thirty 
species; some of them much resembling, it is true, in habit, the Plee- 
tranthi, with which they have been sometimes associated, but all of 
them distinguished by so remarkable a character amongst Labiate, 
the monadelphous stamens, that it appeared impossible not to give it 
a generic value. Indeed, under the Linnean arrangement, were the 
