CLITORIA FULGENS. 
(Bright-flowered Clitoria.) 
Class. Order. 
DIADELPHIA, DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOStE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx furnished with two 
large bracts at the base, five-cleft. Vexillum large. 
Stamens diadelphous, inserted along with the petals, 
above the base of the calyx. Style rather dilated at the 
apex. Legume linear, compressed, straight, two-valved, 
acuminated by the base of the style, one-celled, many- 
seeded. Seeds usually separated by cellular substance, 
axillary, pedicillate. 
Section — Centrosema. Calyx campanulate, cleft 
into five beyond the middle. Vexillum furnished with 
a spur behind. Bracteoles striated lengthwise. Leaves 
pinnately trifoliate, having one pair of leaves and an 
odd one. 
Specific Character.— P?an« a twining evergreen 
sub-shrub. Stem round, clothed with numerous short 
depressed hairs. Leaflets ovate, pilose, with a fringed 
margin. Inflorescence racemose, on a stalk six inches 
long. Vexillum scarcely expanding. 
Synonyme.— Cenfrosma coccinea.—Hort. 
The most fascinating feature of all houses devoted to the display of flowers is, 
in our mind, those elegant plants usually called creepers. Gently supported by 
the aid of pillars or of trellises, and hanging loosely about them, or depending in 
graceful festoons from the roof, they lend an air of ease and finish that contributes 
not a little to enhance the beauty of the general aspect, by divesting it of stiffness 
and formality. 
The present species is an elegant addition to the number of these plants, and 
was obtained by Messrs. Veitch and Sons, of Exeter, who exhibited a specimen at 
the Horticultural fete at the Chiswick Gardens in May, as a species of Centrosema, 
one of the division of the genus Clitoria. It was discovered by their collector, 
Mr. William Lobb, growing on rocks, — over which the graceful slender branches 
spread in all the wild luxuriance of nature, — on the Organ Mountains of Brazil, 
in the autumn of 1840 ; and seeds were received from him, at the Exeter Nursery, 
in the spring of 1841. These were sown immediately, and produced plants which 
flowered for the first time, though rather scantily, last autumn. The abundance, 
however, in which the blossom buds have been developed during the present spring, 
justify us in considering it most likely to prove a very free-blooming plant. 
The long, slender, and slightly hairy stems, are well adorned with handsome 
foliage, having a smooth and bright green upper surface, and the lower side of a 
VOL. XI.-— NO. CXXVI. R 
