INGA PULCHERRIMA. 
(Prettiest Flowering Inga.) 
Class. 
POLYGAMIA. 
Order. 
MONCECIA. 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOS^. 
Generic Character. — Calyx 5-toothed. Petals five, 
connected together into a five-cleft corolla. Stamens 
numerous, exserted, sometimes joined together a short 
way at the base, and sometimes a great way up. 
Legume broad, linear, compressed, one-celled. Seeds 
sometimes imbedded in pulp, sometimes in farina, and 
sometimes, though rarely, enwrapped in a pellicle.— 
Bon's Gard, and Bot. 
Specific Character. — Branches slender, spreading, 
villous when young. Leaves with four or five pair of 
pinnae, of nearly equal length, each pinna bearing 
from 20 to 26 pair of small, linear, obtuse, closely 
imbricated leaflets, adpressedly ciliated at the edges. 
Petioles glandless, clothed with a few scattered hairs, 
Flower-heads solitary, pedunculate, pendulous. 
In a genus of plants like the present, abounding in noble trees and handsome 
shrubs, airy and elegant in their foliage, and bedecked with specious inflorescence, 
the propriety of bestowing a name denoting superlative beauty upon any individual 
species may be somewhat questionable. Whatever of hyperbole there may appear 
in that assigned to the plant before us, the beauty and loveliness of its characters 
entitle it to some corresponding epithet to distinguish it ; and though there may be 
other species equally meriting admiration and distinction, there is none more 
worthy of ranking amongst the fairest ornaments of the tribe. 
One hundred and thirty six species of In^a are enumerated by Don in his 
" System of Gardening and Botany," and it would appear from our catalogues, that 
fully one hundred of these have never yet graced a British collection. We may, 
therefore, hope that many, when introduced, will prove useful acquisitions to the 
stove or the greenhouse. 
The accompanying figure was prepared from a specimen kindly furnished to us 
last February by Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, from whom healthy plants may be 
procured. Uniting with its superior ornamental qualities a propensity to disclose 
its beauties at a season when the general paucity of flower induces us to regard 
every fugitive blossom with a favourable eye, it is still more valuable. It bears a 
striking similarity in its general aspect to /. kermesina. It has, however, much 
smaller foliage, and the drooping tassel-like blossoms, though scarcely equal in size, 
shine with a deeper and more lustrous hue. 
