PLATYLOBIUM PARVIFLORUM. 
^(Sir.all Flowered PlatylobiKm.S 
C?«w. Order. 
DIADELPHIA. DECANDRIA, 
Natural Order. 
LEGUMINOS^. 
Generic Character.— €ali/x bracteate, two-lipped ; Specific Character.— P^ani an evergreen shrub, 
upper lip bifid, roundish, large. /S^tomen^ all connected. Leaves ovate-lanceolate. Ovary ciliated, smoothish. 
Legume pedicellate, compressed, flat, winged on the Bracteas glabrous. Stipe of Legume exceeding the 
back, many-seeded.-— -Don's Gardening and Botany^ calyx. 
Unfortunately amongst tlie Leguminose plants of New Holland there 
exists a very great similarity in the colour of the flowers ; orange and yellow being 
the most prevalent. We ought not, however, on this account to reject them, if 
they are otherwise deserving of a place in the greenhouse; for, although the 
colours approximate so closely in diflerent species, there is, nevertheless, a wide 
variation in their habits of growth, in the size, and even in the proportion of the 
form, and in the position of the inflorescence, that greatly relieves any uniformity 
of colour. Moreover, in forming miscellaneous collections it is easy to obtain 
plants of other colours to create variety in that respect also. 
Our reasons for bringing forward so old a species as the present are, the almost 
immoderate quantity of flowers which it produces when properly managed, and 
the rarity of good specimens notwithstanding the years that have intervened since 
it was first known in British collections. Altogether, it is decidedly a shrub of 
no mean appearance, and being one that by a slight modification of treatment may 
be kept as a low dwarf bush, or induced to grow two or three feet high, main- 
taining its bushy character by numerous ramifications constantly forming, it is 
one that has considerable claims to the attention of cultivators. 
It is a native of the eastern coast of New Holland, and was introduced to 
the gardens of this country about but was afterwards lost, and not 
re-introduced till 1813. Perhaps its scarcity at the present time is, in some 
measure, owing to the difficulty of propagating it from cuttings. A more certain 
way of obtaining young plants, is to layer the ripening shoots ; but the best 
specimens are always produced from seeds, when they can be obtained. 
