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pE NTANDRIA; 
N O S E G A Y P E R I W I N K L E. 
W ITH us this new Favourite makes an elegant Appearance; but fo 
much inferior to the full Excellence it wears in China, that unlefs I 
Ihould dbferve this Figure is from a Specimen fent out of that Countrp, 
fome half-inftru6fed Botanift would fay I had exceeded Nature. It has been 
- thought, thefe Figures, in general, reprefent very elegant Plants of their feveral 
kinds ; but I, and thofe who faw the Specimens with me, muft own they are very 
much below Nature ; tho’ they are as like her Works as I could make them. 
When K^m PEER brought into Europe the Specimens he had colle^fed 
in Japan, the Plants Herman had raifed, the’ from the Seeds ol the fame 
Shrubs, appear’d fo unlike to them, that many, at the lirft Sight, thought the 
Species different : but thefe Variations went no farther than Colour, Number 
of Flowers, and the like Accidents ; the eflential Charadlers were altogether the 
fame in thofe colledfed healthy under their native Sky, and fuch as the Stoves 
furnifhed ; the Difference was in Beauty, nothing more. Perhaps the Seeds col- 
lected with thefe Specimens will yield Plants juft as different, or juft as much in- 
ferior to themfelves as thofe of that Inftance ; but the Difference is flight : We fee 
thus what the Plants are in their extreme PerfeCHon ; and if we would raife them 
to the fame Beauty here, we muft give them Air. 
The Name by which I have called this Shrub is a Tranflation of the Chinese 
T erm ; they call it fb becaufe each Sprig cover’d with its Clufter of Flowers is a 
Nofegay. 
The Shrub is four Foot high, and grows naturally with a pleafing Irregularity. 
The Bark is tender, and the Wood not hard. The Flowers grow ten, twelve, or 
more together at the Summit of each Branch ; and frefh Buds open as the firft 
blown Flowers decay, fo that the Nofegay is in part renewed daily, and yet 
feems Everlafting. 
This is one of the Pentandria, the fifth Clafs : but its five Filaments are 
hot confpicuous ; they are lodged in the Tube, and the Flawer muft be torn 
open to difeover therh. This Tube fwells toward the Top, and there are five 
Prominences on its Surface ; ’tis in this Part the five membranaceous Buttons are 
lodged. They form that Swelling, and thefe Prominences ; and they furround the 
Embryo of the Fruit; a moft Angular Style fixed on the Rudiment of a double 
Pod. 
The Shrub is Native of the East-Indies, China, and the CAPEofGooD 
Hope; and in all thofe Places it is nurs’d alfb in Gardens : yet ’tis but within thefe 
few Years we have known it. Its Figure on the China Skreens, and other 
japan’d Works alwa)^s pleas’d the Eye, but it was fuppos’d a mere Piece of FiCfion. 
W^e once thought fo of their vaft Hibifeus, but we know other wife now j and we 
are in the Way to more Difeoveries. 
See Kempf. Amen. Exot. — Article Tfu Tfu 
