110 
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF NEW PLANTS. 
called “crab’s eyes,” which are the seeds of Abrus precatorius, 
only that they are much larger. The species is probably a native 
of Brazil, but I know nothing respecting its history further than 
that it-was received at the Royal Gardens of Kew under the name 
here retained, from Messrs. Henderson and from the Paris 
Garden.— Bot. Mag . 4293. 
Gesneriace^e. —Bidynamia Angiospermia. 
Columnea aareo-nitens (Hooker). From the Royal Gardens of 
Kew, where it flourishes in a moist stove, producing its blossoms 
sometimes in autumn, sometimes in early spring. These flowers, 
and nearly the whole plant, but especially the younger portions, 
are densely covered with a rich gold-coloured clothing of silky 
hairs. The plant is suffruticose, but succulent: erect, or nearly 
so, scarcely branched, everywhere of a golden hue, from the co¬ 
pious golden-coloured, silky, shaggy hairs, most abundant in the 
young parts. The leaves are placed opposite to each other, and 
are of two kinds, one large, being from four to six inches long, 
and the other scarcely an inch; both are ovate-acuminate, and 
are unequal at the base, one side terminating abruptly and the 
other decurrent to the base of the petiole. The corolla of the 
flowers is tubular, about an inch and a half long, slightly curved, 
yellow, but aureo-nitent from the golden hairs : they are pro¬ 
duced in the axils of the large leaves.— Bot . Mag. 4294. 
Cactace^e. —Icosandria Monogynia. 
Echinocactus Williamsii (Salm Dyck). A neatly formed spe¬ 
cies, which has a very pretty appearance when its starry blos¬ 
soms are expanded. We received several plants of it at the 
Royal Gardens of Kew, through the favour of the Real del Monte 
Company, from the rocky hills of their district of mines in Mexico, 
with many other treasures. It flowers in the summer months. 
Our largest plants do not exceed a few inches in height. They 
grow in a tufted manner, and are often proliferous, the parent 
plant being, as it were, stifled or subdued by its offspring. Each 
individual is turbinate: from the base to the crown or summit 
terrete, of an ashy brown colour, and scarred with close trans- 
