27 
DILLWYNIA SPECIOSA. 
(showy dillwynia.) 
class. order. 
DECANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
LEGUMINOS^. 
Generic Character. — Vide vol. iv. p. 99. 
Specific Character. — Plant shrubby, evergreen, growing from eignteen inches to two feet high. Stem 
erect, slightly scabrous, much disposed to bi'anch. Leaves extremely numerous, irregularly disposed, 
sessile, ascending, linear, channelled in the inner side, twisted, acute, scabrous. Flowers produced 
in clusters from the extremity of every shoot. Corolla with an orange-yellow standard, and reddish- 
purple wings. 
The colonization and consequent exploration of the Polynesian islands by 
British and other emigrants, has latterly been the means of pouring an incalculable 
number of new plants into our floricultural marts, and tending considerably to 
increase the perplexity which the cultivator with limited facilities before expe- 
rienced in selecting the most showy. There is, particularly, a large proportion of 
Leguminous plants from this quarter already grown in our collections, which have 
yellow or yellow and brown flowers ; so that, to preserve that delightful diversity 
of tints which is so potently influential in the formation of a pleasing assemblage, 
it seems necessary that we either discard some of the old ornaments of our green- 
houses, or reject many of the newly arrived that are of the above hues. 
Before, however, deciding against the admittance of novelties into small places, 
on account of the destruction of the ancient stock which they will occasion, it is 
well to determine the pure principles of beauty, and test the respective candidates 
by it alone. To bring forward an illustrative instance, although numberless 
interesting Australian plants with yellow blossoms are now in common cultivation, 
and might always be kept in large gardens, even though far superior ones were 
added, it behoves every amateur who has only one or a few plant-houses to be 
constantly changing his plants as new and more eligible ones offer themselves. 
