IPOMCEA PALMATA.—DILLWYNIA SCABRA. 
25 
IPOMCEA PALMATA.* 
I HE plant from which the accompanying drawing of this very handsome 
^ species of Ipomoea was taken, was raised from seeds gathered near the 
mouth of the Buffalo River, in British Kaffraria, by Captain E. Pooper, 
and sent by him in April 1849 to the Bev. T. Hooper, in whose garden at 
Wick Hill, Brighton, the flowers were produced for the first time in the 
autumn of 1850. It blossomed again in December last, when we had an 
opportunity of examining its flowers. 
There seems no good reason to doubt its identity with the I. palmata of 
Forskahl, at least with that single or few-flowered plant to which the name 
of I. cairica has been applied, and which M. Choisy and others combine with 
it. Whether the few and many-flowered forms to which these names have 
been given, present any other permanent differences sufficient for their dis¬ 
crimination, we have no means of ascertaining, and we have accordingly 
concurred in the view taken in Be Candolle's Prodromus, where Choisy also 
combines with it the Ipomcea quinqueloba of Roemer and Schultes, and the 
I. senegalensis of Lamarck. Viewed in this collective form, the species is recorded to occur in Guinea, 
Senegal, Sennaar, Nubia, Egypt, Syria, and the Island of Santa Cruz. 
The plant, a fleshy-rooted perennial of vigorous growth, produces smooth, slender evergreen stems. 
The leaves are quinate, the lobes lanceolate, the exterior pair usually bifid, the middle more oblong, 
and longer than the rest, all obtuse, mucronate, and very minutely serrulate. The longish petioles are 
slightly hairy at the base, where is situated a pair of palmately divided stipules. In our specimen the 
peduncles each bear one flower (1—3, rarely many-flowered, Choisy), and are somewhat shorter than 
the petioles, bracteate with a pair of small scales just above the middle The sepals are smooth, equal, 
bluntly ovate, with membranous edges. The corolla is sub-campanulate, smooth, of a lightish rose- 
colour, suffused with purple; the stamens enclosed, unequal in length; the stigma slender, with a 
pair of roundish lobes. The ovary is two-celled, the cells two-seeded. 
This very beautiful climber is no doubt suitable for a greenhouse, if not for the open ah’; but as 
yet, Mr. Hooper’s gardener has not succeeded in blooming it freely, In the wild state, however, 
where it grows trailing over bushes, or climbing the trees, in sandy soil, by the river side, Captain 
Hooper found it so profuse that he could scarcely discern the leaves from the abundance of the flowers. 
We suspect that it requires considerable space to develope itself, and that its growth should be com¬ 
menced early in the summer, in order that there may be time in autumn for the development of the 
flowers. Mr. Smyth informs us that in the summer of 1850, a small plant, placed at the foot of a south 
wall in July, had covered twelve square feet of the wall by September, when it was found to be covered 
with blossom buds, but the plant being lifted and removed to a conservatory, it sustained a check 
which prevented their development. When the little peculiarities of its cultivation are ascertained, we 
expect it will become a favourite plant. It was introduced many years since, but lost.—M. 
-♦- 
DILLWYNIA SCABRA. f 
4^OR the opportunity of figuring this very pretty Australian shrub we are indebted to Messrs. 
^ Henderson, nurserymen, Pine Apple Place, Edgeware Road, by whom it had been raised about 
two years since from seeds sent by Mr. Drummond. It was exhibited by them at one of the Regent’s 
Park Exhibitions last summer, when a medal was awarded to it. 
It is a free-growing bushy shrub, with erectly-spreading branches, which when young are hairy f 
but afterwards clothed with a greyish bark. The leaves are scattered, linear, rolled inwards on each 
* Ipomcea palmata, Forskahl, desc. p. 43. + Dillicynia scabra, Schlechtendahl in Linn sea. 
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