supplementary to Encyc. of Playits and Hort. Brit. 60 1 



Spec. Char. — Leaves oblong, lanceolate, serrulate, clammy, 

 varnished; corymbs about 3-flowered, racemose; epigynous disk 

 hemispherical. {Lindl.) 



Description, — An evergreen bushy shrub, covered on all parts 

 with a clammy varnish, and emitting an odour resembling that 

 of melilot or fenugreek. Branches pimpled with resinous dots. 

 Leaves pale green, sometimes shining, sometimes clanmiy from 

 numerous glands that produce a shining resin. Racemes ter- 

 minal, consisting of several alternate 3-flovvered corymbs, having 

 small leafy bracteas. Flowers greenish white. Calyx with a 

 truncate campanulate limb, and five awl-shaped teeth. Stamens 

 five, alternate with, and shorter than, the petals. Epigynous 

 disk yellow, hemispherical, having ten nectar-bearing slight de- 

 pressions at the tip. Ovary 2-celled, many-seeded. [Bot. Reg.) 

 A native of the mountains of Chili at El Arroyo de los Lunes ; 

 and a supposed variety of it has been met with at La Sienta 

 Vieja, at Cuesta, de Chncabuco, and La Laguna near Valparaiso. 



" The whole plant emits a powerful odour, which to some 

 persons is highly disagreeable, appearing to them to resemble 

 the smell of swine : to me it seems less unpleasant, and much 

 more the odour of melilot or fenugreek." The most hardy of 

 all the species of Escalionm at present in British gardens ; and 

 not unlikely. Dr. Lindley considers, " to become a common ever- 

 green. If this should prove so, the pale green of the leaves, 

 their varnished appearance, and the peculiar habit of the plant, 

 will render it a valuable ornamental species, notwithstanding the 

 want of beauty in its greenish-white flowers." [Bot. Reg., Oct.) 



^ricdcecE. 



Facclnium virgatum Ait. We are glad to see Sir W. J. 

 Hooker occupied with this difficult, and, as the species or kinds 

 now stand, most unsatisfactory, genus. If Professors Lindley 

 and Hooker were occasionally to take a particular genus, as 

 Cratae^gus is lately done by the former, and Faccinium, it would 

 appear by the latter, they would render most valuable service to 

 practical men, independently altogether of the advantages it 

 would afford to science. " The excellent collection of American 

 whortle berries, possessed by the Glasgow Botanic Garden," Sir 

 W. J. Hooker observes, " has given me an opportunity of 

 studying their peculiarities, which few persons have enjoyed to 

 such an extent : yet, I confess myself much at a loss to find 

 characters to distinguish some of the species, which, even to a 

 common observer, appear sufficiently marked; and such is the 

 case with the present individual, which goes by the name of V. 

 virgatum in our gardens, and which I have reason to believe is 

 the plant so designated by Alton. Mr. Alton's plant, however, 

 is now almost universally referred to the V. corymbosum ; an 

 opinion which I once entertained myself; yet a more accurate 

 examination has led me to a different conclusion." 



