247 
MARIANTHUS C(ERULEO-PUNCTATUS. 
(blue spotted-flowered MARIANTHUS.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
PITTOSPORACE^. 
Generic Character. — Calyx small, five-parted, lobes equal. Petals five, equal, linear-spatulate, con- 
nivent at the base, campanulately spreading at the summit. Stamens five, hypogynous, ascending ; 
Anthers ovate, obtuse, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary declinate, oblong, compressed, two-celled. 
Style filiform, subfalcate, continuous with the ovary ; stigma capitate. 
Specific Character — Plant a climbing shrub. Branches pubescent, slender, twining to a great length. 
Leaves shortly petiolate, slightly villous ; inferior ones spatulate, shortest, acute, toothed, or a little 
pinnate ; upper ones oblong, acute, entire. Peduncles solitary, opposite the leaf, umbellate-cymose, 
many-flowered. Flowers pale blue. Calyx with five hairy segments. Corolla with oblong acute 
petals, the middle of which is spotted. Anthers blue. 
Of the numberless plants lately introduced to this country from the different 
British settlements in the Pacific Ocean, comparatively few are of a climbing habit, 
and still fewer of these deserve perpetuation. The very elegant plant now figured 
forms, however, a decided exception to that statement, and ranks among the most 
beautiful and interesting of its tribe. Without bearing large or particularly showy 
flowers, it produces such prodigious quantities of them, and they are so gracefully 
disposed, as well as of such a pretty colour, that it will, we are certain, recommend 
itself to lasting favour. 
In the Botanical Magazine for September, where it is depicted partly from dried 
specimens, and partly from plants which bloomed feebly in the stove of Mr. Cun- 
ningham's nursery, Comely Bank, Edinburgh, it is presumed that these were the 
first to flower in Britain. It afterwards blossomed in a greenhouse at the Royal 
Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. 
At Messrs. IIenderson''s nursery, Pine-Apple Place, whence t]ie present 
drawing was taken in July last, we met with it in very profuse flower during the 
summer of 1840, and it was treated as an ordinary greenhouse climber, except that 
