PLEROMA ELEGANS. 
(Elegant Pleronia.) 
Class. Order. 
DECANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
MELASTOMACEiE. 
(Melastomads, Veg. King.) 
Generic Character.— Calyx with an ovate tube ; 
when young involved in two deciduous bracts ; lobes 
five, deciduous. Petals five, obcordate. Stamens ten. 
Filaments pilose or glabrous. Anthers elongated, 
arched at the base, having their connectives stipe- 
formed, and furnished with two short auricles at the 
base. Ovary adhering to the calyx, apex bristly. 
Capsule baccate, rather dry, four or five-celled. Seeds 
cochleate. 
Specific Character. — Plant an evergreen shrub, 
growing six feet high. Branches opposite, erect, sca- 
brous from numerous closely-pressed bristly hairs. 
Leaves opposite, petiolate, nearly elliptical, acute, five- 
nerved, three inner ones prominent, two outer ones 
near the margin less distinct, sometimes almost obso- 
lete, quite entire, smooth, glossy, and of a deep rich 
green above, but pale beneath, and covered with nu- 
merous white closely pressed hairs ; margins ciliated. 
Petioles short, fleshy, scabrous. Flowers terminal, 
solitary. Pedicels short, and generally with two small 
leaves. Tube of calyx globose, beset with stiff bristles, 
and having immediately at the base two or three large 
coloured deciduous bracts ; segments of calyx five, de- 
ciduous. Petals five, smooth, very blunt. Stamens 
ten. Filaments awl-shaped, covered with scattered 
hairs. Anthers sickle-shaped. Style smooth. Ovary 
joined to the calyx-tube, hispid. 
Authorities and Synonymes.— Pleroma.Zte Candolle, 
Prodr. D. Don, in Wer. Soc. Melastoma of various 
Botanists. P. elegans, Gardner, in Hooker's London 
Journal of Botany. Hooker, in Bot. Mag., t. 4262. 
Perhaps a more appropriate title than elegans could scarcely have been given to 
this very elegant plant, which possesses some valuable properties not altogether 
common to the genus ; first, it is of a very dwarf and slender habit, forming quite a 
low broad-spreading shrub ; the foliage is small, neat, and of a bright glossy green ; 
the flowers are large in proportion to the foliage, and of the richest purple, rendering 
the plant when in bloom exquisitely beautiful, almost surpassing the splendid 
P. Kunthiana, figured in our Magazine, vol. xii., t. 125 ; and last but not least, the 
blossoms are not fugitive, but continue in perfection longer than almost any other 
species. 
It is a native of the Organ Mountains of Brazil, where it was originally dis- 
covered by Mr. Gardner, growing at an elevation of 4500 feet, and who had the 
honour of first describing and bringing it under the notice of botanists. It has since 
been sent by Mr. William Lobb, from the same locality, to Messrs. Veitch and Son, 
in whose nursery, at Exeter, it flowered in August, 1847, when our drawing was 
kindly permitted to be made. 
