178 
25. LEGTDlIXOSiE. 
Porto dos Frades, April, May. — Habit of P. glauca, but with 
perhaps less prostrate more upright or ascending st., more silky 
villose pale and grey or hoary foliage, larger more numerous 
deep-or. tl. often 4 or 5 in a head, lanceolate acute lfts. and stip., 
the former sessile on the branches or without any common foot- 
stalk, and larger somewhat thicker straighter not moniliform or 
strangulate but only subtorulose or evenly cylindric pods, which 
are scarcely or about an inch long and f-lj line thick. Ped. 
about i in. long 1-5- or 6- mostly 3-5-fld. with a 3-foliate sessile 
leaf-like br. at top. Cal. as in P. glauca a. In PS. this fine pi. 
seems to take the place of P. glauca , which occurs however here 
and there on the N. coast. At Porto dos Frades in the Serra de 
Fora, P.Jlorida grows in vast profusion, almost clothing the Zim- 
bral d’Area or sandy fossiliferous slope at the S. base of Pico do 
Concelho, which it makes perfectly brilliant rich with its large 
rich orange fl. often streaked or stained with dark coffee-brown, 
forming quite a carpet. A few pi. of P. macrantha grow inter- 
mixed; but this sp., like P. Porto-sanctana, rather affects more 
rocky situations. Amongst whole beds of pi. of a. aurantiaca , 
with deep-orange fl., occurred a patch of 6 or 8 pi. of a beautiful 
var., viz. 
/3. sulphurea ; fl. pale sulphur or straw-colour. Zimbral d’Area, 
rrr ; with equally large and almost more copious fl. of a very de- 
licate pale greenish sulphur-y. or light straw-colour, the stan- 
dard having a few pale streaks of purplish at the base, some- 
what like those of L. macranthus , but without the violet-purple 
keel, &c., and in large heads or clusters as in a, with which it 
also perfectly agrees in habit, pods, and foliage. In both varr. the 
fl. are quite scentless. 
P.Jlorida is totally distinct from the common Canarian L. ses- 
silifolius DC., WB. ! ii. 85 (vix ic. t. 60 P), but it very possibly 
may be a mere local state or extreme form of P. glauca (Ait.). 
I have never met with any pi. in the Madeiran group that on 
due examination could be mistaken for the true P. sessilifolia. 
The above description was taken solely from the Zimbral 
d’Area spec. In a few others discovered only recently in my Her- 
barium, and which were gathered in June 1832 on hills near the 
sea a mile or two to the E. of the town of P*° S t0 , I find a very 
few of the lfts. on the more vigorous leaf-bearing branches with 
petioles line long. In other respects the spec, agree with 
the Zimbral pi. This of course invalidates the claim of P.Jlorida 
to rank as distinct from P. glauca. 
