oval, deeply and evenly serrate, when bruised diffusing 
an unpleasant narcotic smell: raceme of a purple-chocolate- 
colour; if shaken dropping a sweet brownish liquid, which 
is secreted by its peculiar nectary, placed within the bag 
or spur at the base of the lower segment of the calyx, and 
from which the genus has obtained its appellation. To the 
natives of the Cape and its neighbourhood this juice is a 
well-known dainty, and when the plant is in bloom the 
flower is unfailingly plucked by the first of them that de- 
scries it. 
The calyx is here the conspicuous feature of the inflo- 
resente; the corolla being both inconspicuous and fuga- 
cious. The last has been rightly described as of five petals 
by Jussieu, not of four, as we find it said to be in the 
Genera Plantarum and subsequent compilations. When the 
flower is reversed, it reminds us of some insect of the grass- 
hopper kind. <n 
Usually kept in the greenhouse; but Miller says, the ° 
surest method to have it flower, is to plant it in the open 
ground, and to cover the shoots in frosty weather, so as to 
prevent their being killed at the top; having first chosen 
a wall with a southern aspect, and placed the plant in dry 
rubbish, that it may shoot less vigorously, be consequently 
less succulent, and therefore farther without the influence 
of frost. For, if the stalk is killed at the top, although it 
sprouts again, it will not flower the same season. Mul- 
tiplied by suckers taken off at any time from March to 
September. In favourable summers it ripens seed. 
The drawing was taken at Mrs. Howard’s nursery, King’s » 
Road, Little Chelsea, in May last. 
a The flower as it appears when the calyx has been removed. 6 The 
nectary taken from the segment of the calyx which contained it. cThe 
separate fifth petal of the corolla. ad The four coherent ones of the same. 
e The pistil, 
OO 
