219 
BLANDFORDIA GRANDIFLORA. 
(jLARGE-FLOWERED BLANDFORDIA.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
HEXANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDER, 
LILIACEiE, 
Generic Character. — Corolla tubular, with a six-lobed mouth, perishing. Stamens lying on the tube. 
Anthers affixed to a base in the form of an extinguisher. Style subulate. Stigma simple. 
Capsule prism-shaped, divisible into three compartments, each of which opens at the interior angle. 
Seeds in two rows, inserted at the edges of the suture ; outer coat loose, pubescent. 
Specific Character. — Plant an evergreen herbaceous perennial. Leaves rigid, pale green, sword-shaped, 
nerved on each side, slightly serrated. Scape growing to the height of one or two feet, strong, erect, 
and clothed with distant, brown, taper-pointed scales. Flowers spreading out regularly around the 
summit of the scape, pendulous, pedunculate, with two unequal bracts at their base. Bracts opposite, 
ovate, acuminate, as long as the peduncle, the inner one about half the size of the other. Perianth 
large, inflated, orange-red ; limb composed of six segments, of which the outer ones are ovate and 
obtuse, the inner broader and retuse. 
Few topics connected with floriculture have elicited more of our regret than the 
untimely neglect to which handsome and highly ornate old plants are sometimes 
subjected. The thirst for incessant variety so thoroughly pervades all classes of the 
British community, that barely a single cultivator can be reasonably exempted 
from a participation in this childish failing. And even the most enthusiastic, who 
might be supposed to possess a more than ordinary regard for the true interests of 
the art, are precisely the individuals who seem most completely imbued with 
a passion for novelty. 
No better instance can be furnished of the extent to which this fault is now 
carried, than the extreme scarcity of the very showy plant here figured. Until we 
encountered a flowering specimen in the greenhouse of Messrs. Loddiges about the 
middle of last May, we never remember to have met with it in a blooming state. 
With the plant just noticed, we were so particularly gratified, that the drawing 
now presented was executed immediately. And we are satisfied that our readers 
will, with us, consider it a most desirable species for the greenhouse, especially 
