147 
HIBISCUS SPLENDENS. 
(splendid hibiscus.) 
ORDER. 
POLYANDRIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
MALVACE^. 
Generic Character — Calyx svirrounded by many leaves, rarely by a few-leaved involucrum, occasion- 
ally connected at the base. Stigmas five. Carpels joined into a five-celled, five-valved capsule, 
with a dissepiment in the middle of each valve on the inside. Cells many -seeded, rarely one-seeded. 
Specific Character. — Plant shrubby, five to twenty feet high. Stem beset with straight prickles and 
tubercles at the base. Corolla expanded, tomentose on the ribs beneath, segments of the calyx 
three-nerved, keeled, leaflets of the involucrum numerous, linear, awl-shaped, a little shorter than 
the calyx. Peduncles axillary, one-flowered, much larger than the petioles. Leaves palmately three, 
five-lobed, lobes lanceolate. — Hook. Bat. Mag. 1. 3025. 
This splendid feature of the natural order Malvaceae was introduced into this 
country about eight years ago, by Mr. Frazer, from New Holland, and in 1830 a 
figure appeared by Dr. Hooker, in that excellent periodical, the Bot. Mag. 1, 3025. 
The plant from which the drawing in the Bot. Mag. was taken, produced its 
flowers in the stove, and by most of those who possessed it at that time it was 
thought to be dangerous to place it in the greenhouse, or, in other words, that it 
would not produce its blossoms so perfect if brought into the greenhouse and 
treated, as far as regards temperature, like other New Holland plants ; since that 
time it has become pretty generally diifused through our collections, and cultivators, 
ever on the alert, have ascertained that it will grow better and blossom more freely 
in the greenhouse than in the stove ; for instance, Messrs. Fisher and Holmes, of 
Handsworth, near Sheffield, who have plants of it for sale in a vigorous state, 
always keep them in the greenhouse, and we have been assured frequently that it 
grows and flowers to the greatest perfection with this treatment. About eight 
months ago, we obtained a plant of Messrs. Fisher and Co., which has since that 
time been standing with other plants in the greenhouse, and although then only a 
small plant, it now promises to make a fine specimen. 
The species represented in the figure is a plant that no collection should 
be destitute of; its corolla is of a beautiful rose-colour, the lower part of the fila- 
CLASS. 
MONADELPHIA. 
