[Plate 10.] 



DAMPIER'S CLIANTH. 



(CLIANTHUS DAMPIERI.) 



A Greenhouse Perennial Trailer, from New Holland, belonging to the Order of 



Leguminous Plants. 



Specific Character. 



DAMPIER'S CLIANTH. — Herbaceous, shaggy, dectvmbent. Leaflets opposite, very seldom alternate, obovate-oblong. 

 Stipules cut or toothed. Peduncles bearing a kind of umbel at the point, shorter than the leaves. Calyx 5-cleft, 

 •with acuminate segments, and acute re-entering angles. Ovary shaggy. 



Olianthus Dampieri, Cunningham in Hort. Soc. Trans. II. series i. 522. R. Brown in Sturtfs Narrative (1849), II. 71 ; 

 alias Clianthus Oxleyi, Cunningham; alias Donia speciosa, Don (according to Brown); alids Kennedya speciosa, 

 of Cunningham. 



THIS beautiful plant, raised from New Holland seeds, by Messrs. Veitch of Exeter, under 

 tlie name of Kennedya speciosa, received the large silver medal of the Horticultural 

 Society when exhibited in Regent Street, an honour never conferred upon any new plants, 

 except such as are of surpassing value as objects of cultivation. 



It forms a stout decumbent herbaceous perennial, of a paLbd aspect, covered with long 

 hairs. The pinnated leaves are in about five pairs, with an odd one ; the leaflets being 

 oblong, or slightly obovate, opposite in most cases, and furnished with a pair of coarsely- 

 toothed or slashed stipules. From the axils of these leaves, and shorter than they, arise 

 angular peduncles, having on the end four or five quasi-umbellate flowers of the most 

 brilliant colour. Their calyx is tubular, shaggy, with five acuminate lobes, and acute 

 re-entering angles. The standard is ovate, oblong, acuminate, bright scarlet, with a deep 

 purple stain at the base, which is convex and shining; the keel is acuminate, scarlet, and 

 very like that of the Crimson Clianth (Clianthus puniceus), as are the wings, which are 

 also scarlet. The ovary and stamens appear not to be different from the organs belonging 

 to the last-mentioned species. 



Dr. Brown, who seems to have studied this plant, speaks of it thus in the Appendix 

 to Captain Shirt's Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia: — . 



" In July, 1817, Mr. Allan Cunningham, who accompanied Mr. Oxley in his first 

 expedition into the western interior of New South Wales, found his Clianthus Oxleyi on 

 the western shore of Regent's Lake, on the River Lachlan. The same plant was observed 

 on the Gawler Range, not far from the head of Spencer's Gulf, by Mr. Eyre, in 1839, and 



