BURTONIA CONFERTA. 
(Crowded-leaved Burtonia.) 
Class. Order. 
DECANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOSJE. 
Specific Character.— Plant a smooth evergreen 
shrub. Stem ascending, angular. Leaves simple, awl- 
shaped, with sub-recurved ends, pallid base, and revo- 
lute margins. Corymb terminal, many-flowered. Calyx 
green, glaucous, covered with a smooth pubescence. 
Petals violet. 
Generic Character.— Calyx profoundly five-cleft. 
Petals five, deciduous, about equal in length, two ef 
which are concrete into a keel on the back. Ovary 
two-seeded. Style subulate, dilated at the base. Stigma 
obtuse, bearded. Legume roundish, ventricose. Seeds 
without a strophiola.— Don's System of Gardening and 
Botany. 
This charming little plant is a native of New Holland, where it was discovered 
on the South Western coast, by Mr. Baxter, and transmitted to England 
about 1830. It is remarkable for its neat and elegant growth, and is at the 
present time met with rather extensively in most of the principal nursery 
establishments around London. The specimen from which our figure was made 
was kindly supplied by Messrs. Henderson, of Pine-apple Place. 
From the dwarfness of its habit, and the great profusion with which the 
flowers are borne, it is admirably adapted for a choice and limited collection. But 
it demands considerable attention to enable it to develope its qualities in 
perfection, and is not a little altered under the different degrees of skill and watch- 
fulness bestowed on its culture. Much like a heath in outward appearance when 
destitute of flowers, it also requires a treatment in many respects analogous, and 
will always be most successfully managed apart from the soft- wooded and succulent 
tribes. The flowers appear in the most prominent station — at the very extremity 
of the shoots, and are arranged in dense clusters ; and when the plants are kept in 
a healthy vigorous state, the shoots occasionally shortened back to favour the 
increase of laterals, and spread out to form a neat bush, they carry a somewhat 
imposing aspect. 
One of the most important features in its cultivation is to provide a sufficient 
drainage, and adopting measures to prevent it from becoming defective ; for if a 
superabundance of water remain in the vicinity of the roots, these organs, which 
are of an extremely tenuous and delicate structure, will incur serious injury. The 
texture of the soil employed in potting should also be open and full of fibrous 
