68 Tie VEG E TAA BL-E SYSTEM. 
6:9. A MEBLT- HY S-T ENE ER Y.N-G 0. 
Platé-63-.: Toe.<} 
Eryngium Amethyftinum., 
Character of the Species. 
The lower leaves are handed, and in the circumference nearly round ; 
they are compofed of many plaited and thorned divifions. 
Fig. 1. a6. 
‘THIs: is a Perennial, native of the Apennines; an upright, robuft, and very beautiful 
Plant, of two feet high ; flowering i in June and July. The firft or lower Leaves, are of 
a very fine, though pale green, with white ribs, hard, folid, and glofly ; ; and have 
often a blotchy mixture of a deeper green, fo that they have a variegated afpect. The 
Stalk is upright, thick, tough, and firm; it rifes fingle, and does not branch much, 
till near the top ; where it throws out a great many Shoots, which form together a 
thick and large Head. Thefe Branches, and a part, if not the whole of the Stem, for 
this depends on accidents, are of the moft delicate colour that can be imagined. It is 
blue with a mixture of purple; a tin@ too glowing, and too fine to be defcribed, other- 
wife than by the allufion to that Gem from which the Plant takes its name ; for it is of 
the hue and luftre of the moft perfect Amethyfts. In its native place, the Plant is al- 
ways coloured thus in the Stalk to the ground; with us, where too rich a foil gives it 
~ more heighth and largenefs, the lower part is white; and where this is the cafe, the 
colour of the top is not fo glowing. When this glow is perfect, it is a Plant to be feen 
and admired from a diftance ; and more fo, every ftep that one advances to it. The 
Flowers are of a fine blue, with fomewhat of the amethyftine tinge ; but their colour is 
not nearly fo bright as that of the Stalk. 
