HINDSIA VIOLACEA. 
(Porcelain-blue Hindsia.) 
Class. 
PENTANDRIA. 
Order. 
ONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
CINCHONACB^. 
Gbneric Character — Calt/x tube turbinate ; limb 
parted into four or five unequal segments, linear, or 
dilated, and leaf-like at the extremity. Corolla fun- 
nel-shaped, tube elongated, a little inflated at the top, 
and bearded within between the stamens ; throat 
naked ; limb five-cleft, segments ovate, aestivation 
valvate. Anthers linear, near the top of the tube, 
almost sessile. Ovary two-celled, placentfe affixed to 
the middle of dissepiments. Ovules numerous. Style 
with long linear branches, covered with compressed 
papillose hairs. Capsuleinieiiox; septicide two-valved; 
loculicide two-parted. Seeds numerous, destitute of 
wings. 
Specific Character. — Plant a branching, spread- 
ing, softly pubescent, evergreen shrub. Stipules ovate. 
Leaves broadly ovate, rounded at the base, acute, sul- 
cate beneath, wrinkled, longer than the petioles Pe- 
duncles two-flowered, short. Calyx segments very 
unequal, spatulate, acute. Corolla four or five-lobed, 
tube very long ; segments oval, acute, fleshy; throat 
naked. Stigma filiform, exserted. 
The propriety of retaining the plant figured at page 217 of vol. YIII., in the 
genus Rondeletia, has for some time been doubted by botanists, and a careful 
examination of that species and the present has at length induced Mr. Bentham to 
form them into a new genus, which he has defined with the characters given 
above. 
The Botanical Register contains the following remarks on the matter by Mr. 
Bentham : — " It is much to be regretted that these plants should have been 
referred to Rondeletia from which they differ so much in appearance, and from 
which they may be essentially distinguished by the form of the corolla, rather 
funnel-shaped than salver-shaped, without any callous contraction or beard at the 
mouth of the tube, by the capsule which separates by the splitting of the dissepi- 
ment into two cocci (dry elastic pieces), which are loculicidaily split, and by some 
other minor points." 
Independent, however, of other characters, the absence of the coronal appendage 
at the throat of the tube, is a distinction by which the genus may be known from 
Rondeletia, by every cultivator ; and, although the alteration of any name which 
has once become universally established, is always attended with some confusion, 
and is unwarrantable without great and obvious reasons, the present and its ally, 
