CHIRITA ZEYLANICA. 
(Ceylon Cbirita.) 
Class. 
DIDYNAMIA. 
Order. 
ANGIOSPERMIA. 
Natural Order. 
CYRTANDRACEjE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx deciduous, tubular, 
five-cleft. Corolla tubular at the base, ventricose at 
top ; limb campanulate, five-lobed, bilabiate ; lobes 
rounded, imbricate in sestivation. Stamens two, anthe- 
riferous, inclosed, sometimes without any rudiment 
of a sterile one, and sometimes with three ; filaments 
glabrous ; anthers roundish, naked, adnate. Stigma 
bipartite ; lobes linear, obtuse. Capsule siliquose, 
two-celled, many-seeded ; dissepiment parallel. Seeds 
naked, acute at both ends.— Don's Gard. and Bot. 
Specific Character. — Plant a succulent shrub, 
evergreen. Leaves opposite, appressedly silky above, 
indistinctly seriate, oblique at the base, with long 
petioles. Peduncles axillary. Flowers produced in 
trichotomous panicles. Bracts and calyx-lobes ovate. 
Corolla purple, having the interior of the tube yellow, 
bilamellate above, with two elevated hirsute lines 
beneath. Stigma transversely triangular.— Hooker. 
We have not met with a more charming thing with which it is at all comparable, 
through the past year, than this Chirita proved itself last summer in a very 
temperate, close, much-shaded stove, at Messrs. Knight and Perry's, where the 
drawing our plates are prepared from was completed. Cultural excellence was not 
sought in the case of the plant to which we allude, but the healthy and free manner 
in which it grew, the striking abundance of its blossoms, their size and deep bright 
tints, gave pleasing evidence of how favourable to its welfare the conditions it 
experienced were. 
Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter, favoured us with a specimen from a rather large 
plant sent to one of the last garden exhibitions of the Horticultural Society, that 
enabled our artist to make a partial drawing of this plant ; but in consequence of the 
great heat of the season quickly destroying such specimen, the delineation was 
incomplete till the opportunity mentioned, of finishing it, was afforded. Of the 
history of the species we have no further intelligence than that which may be found 
at page 213 of the volume preceding the present. The Island of Ceylon, from 
whence seeds have been received and raised in this country within this year or two, 
produces it naturally. m When out of flower it is by no means an attractive plant ; 
its' branches are succulent, and grow long, sending out few laterals, but they bear 
towards their apex panicles of beautiful flowers very freely. The foliage is 
VOL. XIII. NO. CLVI. M M 
