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IJiCANcii,, Link;!,, 
BLOOMY PLOWERFENCE. 
POINCIAKA PULCHERR.m*, 
T 
i M I S is a noble and elegant SInub ; and unlike everv tMn u ra • 
Thefe are a colledion of vegetable beauties, and it is had to L u 
demands preference : but this is certainly inferior to none. 
We have heard of :t from the East-Indip.s ; and alfo in the West-I-di , in n j 
Seeds lent thence have produced often Plants in our ftoves. but they hm-e'not fl ' ' m 
they rarely made the attempt, and when they Ihevv'd Bud, they perilh'd in ' 
This flower’d in the year at S,o. House, under the eye of the Duke 
THUMBHRUAtrn whofc ftoves arc better proportion’d for this ferviee, than any I hav tZ 
and who has been fo happy m hts attention to the feienee, as to enrich Leop w' h 
more new Plants than could have been epedfed from any in the time, and rn the p - 
fent ftate of Botanv ; fo much having been attempted every where. ^ 
Laft year it flower’d in fuch perfeaion, as this figure reprefents, and made an effort 
to npen one Seed-vellel. Tis now in the full Bud again, and having more ftrenmh at the 
Root, will probably accomplilh it. I do not defoair of feeing the fame Hand that rais’d 
the Plant to flower m Britain, produce, from Seeds ripen’d here, a new Succefiion. 
This was from China Seed, and there appear’d fome difference in the Plant, but the 
eflential charaflers are all the fame ; and the variation is no more than accidental. 
No Plant declares its Clafs more evidently than the Poinciana. ’Tis counted in the 
Filaments ; and thefe are wonderfully long and diftind : if all Plants fhew’d them thus, 
nothing would be fo eafy as the Sexual Syftcm. They are ten, and the Clafs is therefore 
the Decandria, the tenth in the Linna;an method. 
Every thing confpires to beauty in this Plant ; the Leaves are elegant in form .and 
colour; and the difirofition of the Flowers in a long, loofe Spike, fufficiently near to make 
one body, and yet feparate enough to fliew each diftinaly. The very Cups, as the Flower 
opens, become colour d, and make a part of it ; nor is any thing more elegant than the 
manner wherein tliofe long and numerous Filaments are lodged within the Bud till the 
" ower opens. A fifth Pttal in the Flower, and a filth Leaf of the Cup, different in form 
and colouring. From the others, add to the Angularity and gracef ul wildnefs of the whole ; 
the colour is in the higheft degree rich and glowing. Art imitates it poorly. The 
■ particular are as diftinguilhable for colour as for form : the crimfon of thefe 
> imitated by our befl: tindfs. The form of fuch a Clufter, crown’d with their Anthera;, 
me all who faw the Plant in earlier times of Botanv, and they nam’d it Peacock’s 
^''‘:sT, from the imagin’d rcfcmblancc. 
• /' 
Poinciana aculcis geminis. Crifta Pavonis Auchorum. 
F 
