34 
GOMPHOLOBIUM VENUSTUM. 
GOMPHOLOBIUM VENXJSTXJM. (Beautiful Gompholobium.) 
Class, Diadelphia. Order , Decandria. Nat. Order , Fa baceal ( Veg. King.) 
Generic Character. — Calyx five-parted, nearly equal. 
Keel of two concrete petals. Standard broad. Stigma 
simple. Legume many seeded, nearly spherical, and very 
blunt. 
Specific Character. — Plant an evergreen shrub, from one 
to two feet high. Stem twining, slender. Branches flexuose, 
long, lax. Leaves alternate, pinnated, consisting of ten or 
twelve pairs ; leafilets awl-shaped, narrow-linear, rounded at 
the points, veiny, with revolute margins, smooth. Petioles 
very short. Flowers corymbose, rosy-purple. Peduncles ter- 
minal, many-flowered ; pedicels slender, furnished with two 
bracts. Calyx smooth, green tinged with purple, ciliated at 
the margin. Standard waved at the margin, large, crimson- 
purple, with a bright yellow blotch at the base. Keel almost 
elliptical, concave, smooth, shorter than the wings, Wings 
broadly-obovate, waved, spreading, rose colour. Stamens ten, 
free. Legume subglobose, glabrous, longer than the calyx. 
Authorities and Synonyhies. — Gompholobium venustum, 
R. Brown in Hort. Kew. Hooker in Bot. Mag., 4258. 
More than thirty species of Gompholobium have been discovered and described by bota 
nists as growing in various parts of Australia ; the whole have been introduced to our collec 
tions during the present century. All are 
dwarf shrubs of slender habit, and vary in 
height from six inches to three feet. The 
flowers of the greater part are yellow, tinted 
with various shades of red ; a few, however, 
are purple, of which our present subject is one. 
All the Gompholobiums are elegant plants, 
and deserve to be cultivated; but the more 
slender kinds are generally considered difficult 
to manage well, as they very often suddenly 
die without any apparent cause ; the fact is, 
the roots are very tender, and if the soil in 
which the plants grow ever becomes parched 
by drought, or saturated by water, sudden 
death is almost sure to follow. 
G. venustum is a most lovely plant. 
Messrs. Knight and Perry received seeds 
of it from Mr. Drummond, who found it 
growing at the Swan River Settlements in 
1843 ; it had, however, been previously de- 
tected in several localities in South West 
Australia by Mr. Brown ; and also Mr. Frazer 
gathered it in King George’s Sound. It 
flowered for the first time in this country in 
July 1845 ; and our drawing was prepared in 
the Nursery of Messrs. Knight and Perry, 
King’s Road, Ghelsea, in July 1847. 
The plant has a slender, twining habit, 
bright green foliage, fine and wiry ; the 
reddish lilac blossoms are produced abun- 
dantly, in clusters of ten or twelve, at the 
extremities of the branches. 
The generic name is derived from gom- 
phos, a club, and lobos, a pod ; in reference to 
the shape of the pods. 
