199 
CYCLOGYNE CANESCENS. 
(hoary CYCLOGYNE.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
DIADELPHIA. DECANDRIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
LEGUMINOSiE. 
Generic Character.— Ca/^/'^ campatiulate, partially five-lobed, with unequal segments. VexiUum nearly 
round, emarginate, folded together at the base, naked, and longer than the lower petals. Wings 
short, oblong. Keel larger than the wings, very much incurved, obtuse, with the petals connate at 
the base. Stamens distinctly diadelphous. Anthers very similar, alternate ones rising above the 
others. Ovary furnished with a short stipule, villous, containing many ovules. Stt/le incurved, 
circinately involute at the apex, bearing the stigma on the interior side, and much bearded. Legumes 
inflated, oblong, one-celled, bare within. 
Specific Character. — Plant apparently herbaceous or suffruticose, growing about two feet high, covered 
with white down. Stems erect, numerous, rather flexuose, tomentosely villous. Stipules foliaceous, 
broadly semicordate. Leaves unequally pinnate ; leaflets thirteen to fifteen obovately-oblong, 
smooth above, clothed beneath with a loose whitish pubescence. Peduncles erect, many-flowered, 
longer than the leaves, terminal. Flowers subsessile, scattered or pseudo-verticillate. Calyxes 
and legumes very villous in the younger state. Petals smooth, purple, with a beautiful blotch of 
green on the lower part. 
It not unfrequently happens, in the earlier cultural history of a plant brought 
to Britain from foreign countries, that a considerable time passes away ere its 
correct character of annual, biennial, or perennial, herbaceous, suffruticose, or 
thoroughly shrubby, is accurately determined. Particular circumstances in which 
it chances to be placed, or a certain kind of treatment that proves beneficial or 
otherwise, have such an extraordinary influence in creating the habitude, that the 
same plant may positively be considered, in difi'erent situations, and by different 
cultivators, to grow in a manner directly dissimilar ; and obtains, in consequence, 
the character which each individual deems the natural one. 
By the plant before us, the foregoing assumption is aptly exemplified. From 
the appearance of the dried specimens, it was thought to be an herbaceous 
perennial ; while from living plants, which, owing to an unfortunate operation 
that, for the time, destroyed their stems, and greatly endangered their existence, 
are not now in proper state to judge by, we should decidedly say that it was 
