ve THe VEGETABLE SYSTEM. 
Pe RORKED SCABIOUS. 
Plate 27. Fig. I. 
Chasse of the Brecie > | Scabiofa Syriaca. 
ok he Stalk fplits in a hed: manner; the 1 eiees are ss d, and ead 
-ferrated, efpecially toward the bafe. 
| | Fig. 1 sa; 
Tuis i is an A inak native a, Syria, and many other warm parts of the globe ; Bae is 
no where fo plentiful as about Aleppo; ‘though this is not always, but in certain years, 
for fometimes in the fame places, which were before in a manner covered with it, there 
s fcarce a Plant to be feen: the caufe of which will be confidered. The Plant is 
me = yard and a half high, very beautiful, and lafts many months in flower. The Stalk x 
ridged, ereét and robuft, of a pale green, and always rifes unbranched for fome heighth 
~ above the ground. The proper fummit of it is terminated by a Flower, a little below 
which, rife two Branches in a forked manner; and each of thefe terminating at the 
eee ee Stem give the fame forked afpect to the whole upper part of the Plant, with a Floweron _ 
aed 
: a fhort Footftalk in the divifion, 
| eT caves re of a pale, and very delicate green the Flowers are of a perfeélly 
coeleftial blue: shoush they will vary from this, and fometimes be white. 
THE afped and habit of this Plant, and the extreme uncertainty of finding it in the 
fame place ; together with the free growth of the Seeds with us at fome times; and — 
- their perfect failing at others, though feeming very good and found, give me a fufpicion 
that the Plant is not a genuine {pecies, but is produced between the Shepherd’s Rod 
and fome one of the Scabious’s. The habit more refemhles the Shepherd’s Rod 
than the Scabious, but is truly of a kind between them. The Leaves have much of the 
_ Shepherd’s Rod form ; and their deep divifion toward the bafe, feems an attempt toward 
the diftinct appendages of that Plant: neither does the form of the general Flower deny 
this alliance. ‘There is in this cafe lefs wonder that the Seeds fail often ; than that they 
- fometimes grow. 
We fhall have an opportunity of enquiring farther into the doétrine of Mulith Plants, — 
at the end of this Genus. 
7 HOLLOW’D 
