ERANTHEMUM VARIABILE. 
(Variable Eranthemum.) 
Class. 
DIANDRIA. 
Generic Character. — Calyx five-cleft, tubular, 
erect, skinny, persistent. Corolla monopetalous, fun- 
nel-shaped, tube slender, very long, limb five-parted, 
flat, lobes obovate and equal. Stamens two ; filaments 
spiral at the base ; anthers nearly ovate, compressed 
and protruding beyond the orifice. Style ovate. Stigma 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
erect, unequal. Ovarium spatulate, compressed, two- 
valved. Ovules solitary, lentiform. 
Specific Character. — Plant suffruticose, slender, 
pubescent. Spikes terminal, loose. Peduncles axil- 
lary, few-flowered. Calyx with subulate lobes. Leaves 
ovate or oblong, entire or slightly toothed. 
Natural Order. 
ACANTHACEJ3. 
It is recorded in botanical catalogues that this plant was first brought under 
notice in 1820 ; by whom, where grown, or to what extent it was then regarded, we 
are not able to learn. Till the present we are not conscious that a figure 
of it exists; and, being described in Brown’s (Robert) “ Prodromus Florae Novae 
Hollandiae,” it is little noticed in works on Botany, 
Of its history, as it now exists in our gardens, further than that Messrs. Knight 
and Perry (who kindly furnished the subject of our drawing) received it recently 
from Kew, we have no intelligence. It is a very desirable plant, bearing all summer, 
in great profusion ; its spikes of pretty light-purple flowers, which at their throat are 
slightly marked with rosy crimson. Quite small plants flower very freely; indeed, 
it is dwarf-growing, and well clothed with foliage, whose silvery marking always 
constitutes it a pleasing object. 
Being a New Holland species, it may be imagined that a greenhouse temperature 
is all that it requires ; and although it might there grow and flower with very fair 
success, there is no question but it would be in its true element in the stove, or at 
least in an intermediate house : grown in either of these last, and when flowering 
placing it in a warm greenhouse, would not be subjecting it to conditions unfavour- 
able to its welfare, and would permit its bloom to be viewed with a degree of 
pleasure the stove, as is well known, would not admit of. 
Notwithstanding it is a plant so pleasingly compact, and wearing such an 
engaging aspect when flowering, only requiring to be seen in that state by a lover of 
flowers, to be desired ; as a large or tolerably sized specimen only, it probably will be 
