612 Monthly Botanical Report. [Jan. I, 
that vigorous growth, by which it is said to overwhelm trees and hedges, its inflorescence, 
however, is well represented, and makes a valuable addition to Cluvius’s figure, which re- 
presents the plant in seed only. 5. Chlorophytum inornatum; a new genus from the West 
Indies, of which Mr. Gawler could find no traces in any author, nor any constituted genus 
under which he could arrange it. It is here considered as belonging to Jussieu’s Natural Or- 
der of Bromeliz, apparently from finding some resemblance in habit to certain of the species 
of Tillandsia, a genus as yet by no means well defined: we should rather have referred it to 
the second section of the order of Asphodeli. 6. Watsonia rosea; one of the handsomest 
plants in the whole order of ensate. Mr. Gawler has here favoured us with a new geneéric 
character of Watsonia, which does not however differ much from what he has before given in 
the first volume of the Annals of Botany. He has added alsoa table of all the known SPECIESg . 
amounting to thirteen, ten of which have been figured in the Botanical Magazine, Watsonia 
is.a well defined genus, and how necessary it was become to constitute such an one, this list 
aione will show, the species having been before distributed, some to one genus and some te 
another, in a most irregular and uncertain manner. The essential character of Watsonia, 
@ppears to us to consist in its bipartite stigmas. Two of the species here enumetated, viz. 
spicata & plantaginea, differ considerably from the rest in habit, the former according to the 
figure in the Botanical Magazine, has simple acute stigmas, and according to Jacquin, they 
are only emarginate, but in the latter which in other respects is very nearly allied, the stig- 
mas are in this work represented to be bipartite and revolute, as in the rest of the genus. 
otherwise we should have bees much inclined to have excluded both from the Watsonias. 
@. Crinum asiaticum. From the synonyms here given of this plant, and which, as far as we 
_ have been able to ascertain, are correct, this species and Crinum erubescens, appear to have been © 
frequently confounded together ; even Miller’s figure, quoted in that most accurate of all bo- 
tanical works, the Hortus Kewensis, as a synonym to erubescens, it is here asserted, belongs to 
this plant. 
In the Botanist’s Repository for Jast month, we have 1. Bignonia grandiflora; in which we 
Fear the artist has, as usual, outstepped the modesty of nature. This species has great affinity 
with B. radicans, but the flowers are much more specious ; it is a native of China, and may 
probably be as hardy as the latter species, but being at present rare, no one we believe has yet 
ventured to plant it abroad. 2. Scutellaria integrifolia, here called serrata, because from cul- 
tiyation the leaves become somewhat sawed at the edge; if authors will thus wantonly change 
the specific names of plants, just to make them accord with their own ideas, not unfrequently 
too adapted from erroneous representations, there is no other way to avoid confusion but by 
considering their names as of no authority whatever. Mr. Andrews’s work would be at least 
equally useful if he were to refuse all botanical assistance,-and professedly give the nursery- 
raan’s or gardener’s name, with such an account of the history of its introduction, and practical 
observations on its habits and culture, as he could himself easily iearn by enquiry. ‘ 3. Protea 
corymbosa. This is probably Thunberg’s plant, though it differs from his description and figure 
in having larger capitula and the involucres longer than the flower, changes probably enough 
made by culture. 4. Jasminum pudescens of Retz and Vahl, if we are not very much mistaken, | 
though here supposed to be the Nyctanthes mu/tifora of Burman, in which case it should have 
een called Jasminum undulatum, not multifiorum. It is one of the largest flowered in the 
genus, and very nearly allied to the following. 5. Jasminum Sambac 3 the arabian, or as it 
33 here called indian, jasmine, a very old inhabitant of out stoves, and highly valued for its 
fragrance, which is supereminent even in this odoriferous genus. 
In English botany for last month, the only phenogamic* plants are, 1. Festuca gigantea, 
bromus of Linnzus, from which genus Villars first removed it, and in this has been followed 
by Relhan and Dr. Smith. Perhaps there is not in nature any real difference between the two 
genera, and botanists should recollect that the assumed characters of a genus are not always 
natural, and where there is any uncertainty it issurely better to suiter the old name to remain, 
though doubts may be expressed of its propriety. In the present instance, it appears to us, 
that this plant is removed from those with which it has the nearest affinity, as Bromus hirsutus, 
mollis, arvensis and tectorum, to a genus to none of the species of which it is so nearly allied. 
It was the awn being terminal that induced Villars to consider this plant as a Festuca, but we 
have observed, with Curtis, that the awn is inserted a little below the point of the glume 3; it 
is so little indeed, that only a thin membrane, hardly discoverable to the naked eye, is seen 
to project beyond the insertion of the awn, but even this might have sufficed to have retained 
== 
\ 
* Pheenogamic, or phaenogamous, is a word much used by the German botanists in contra- 
distinction to cryptogamic, and from its convenience begins te be adopted here, These two 
words commodicusly divide the whole vegetable kingdom inte two great families, the pheno- 
gamic plants comprehending all such as have the organs of fructification evident, that is, the 
whole of the twenty-three first classes in the Linnéan system; the cryptogamic, such as have 
these organs concealéd, as those of the twenty-fourth class, viz. ferns, mosses, algce, and fungi, 
which though less known are perhaps not much less numerous than the former. if 
4 bi 
