BARBACENIA SQUAMATA. 
(Scaly Barbacenia.) 
Class. Order. 
HEXANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
BR0MELIACEJ5. 
Generic Chahacte-r.— Perianth a corolla, adhering 
to the face of the ovarium, funnel-shaped, six-cleft. 
Filaments bifid. Anthers fixed by the back to the 
lower part of the divisions of the perianth. Fruit a 
three-celled capsule. Seeds numerous. 
Stem short, simple, densely clothed with leaves. Leaver 
linear, acuminate, smooth, slightly glaucous, with nu- 
merous minute spinous serratures at the margins. 
Scape a little longer than the leaves. Flowers with a 
cylindrical tube, longer than the ovarium, and a 
Specific Character.— Ptoni an herbaceous perennial. I spreading limb. Filaments sltioxi. 
For the introduction of this plant, cultivators are indebted to the enterprising 
zeal of Messrs. Yeitch and Sons, of Exeter, whose collector, Mr. Lobb, forwarded 
seeds from Brazil, in 1841, from which a number of plants have been raised, which 
have flowered in the valuable collection of those gentlemen during the spring of 
the present year ; and from one that they exhibited in March, at the Horticultural 
meeting in Regent Street, we have been enabled, through their obliging attention, 
to prepare the accompanying drawing. 
The genus Barbacenia has been long known to the admirers of plants through 
the B. purpurea, another Brazilian species of considerable merit ; and through the 
more recently introduced B. gracilis. Besides the present, these are the only 
species which have been received in England. 
Twelve species are mentioned by Martius in his Plantarum Braziliensis ; and 
engravings and descriptions of six are furnished in the same work, all of which are 
different from the three above mentioned. They were found growing on arid situa- 
tions on mountains, at an elevation of from 1000 to 1500 feet, and only between 
the 14th and 23d degrees of latitude. One of those species, B. tricolor^ apparently 
bears a strong resemblance to the subject of our plate, but is a dwarfer plant, and 
essentially distinct in specific character. The leaves are shorter than the scape ; 
and the flowers, instead of having the inside of the petals of a deeper colour than 
the outer, are just reversed. 
Most of the species — and amongst them the present must be enumerated — have 
long narrow leaves collected on a short stem into a tuft, and when without their 
flowers have an appearance resembling some of our mountain sedges. 
