‘* 
from Mr. Parmentier’s collection, at Enghien, by Messrs. 
Loddiges; and our drawing was made from a sample 
‘which flowered in their nursery at Hackney in April last. 
It is said to be very difficult to propagate, consequently 
likely to continue rare. Probably native of Mexico, cer- 
tainly of America, but not of New Holland, as has been 
stated elsewhere. It ranks in the same natural order as the 
Buckthorns of our own country; but the group to which it 
has been generically restricted, is not represented in Europe 
by any indigenous species, though it is in each of the other 
quarters of the world. 
Branches round, tomentose, slightly tawny. Leaves 
about 3 inches long, about one and a half broad, ovately 
oblong, pubescent, soft, acuminated, serrated with teeth 
headed by a minute cartilaginous spinous point, green above 
and transparently pubescent, tomentose underneath and 
‘slightly tawny, somewhat wrinkly veined above, neryed, 
the three principal nerves prominent on the under, de- 
pressed on the upper side. Panicles produced on opposite 
axillary branchlets, short, thyrselike, axillary and termi- 
nal, the former simple, the latter compound, the partial 
ones separated by thin dry bractes in the place of leaves; 
pedicles one-flowered filiform simple equal hairy disposed 
in fascicles separated by bractes from the base to the 
top of a short tomentose peduncle. Flowers blue, when un- 
opened nearly of the diameter of a Coriander seed. Calya 
corollabearing, of rather a more opaque blue than the 
petals, oblately campanulate, slightly pentagonal, segments 
ovately angular, membranous, convergent. Corolla up- 
rightly spread; petals 5, yaultedly spatulate, situated in. 
the intervals of the segments of the calyx, radiately distinct, _ 
equal; wnguis linearly narrow, convolutely channelled, ta- 
pered downwards; lamina helmetshaped, with the sides 
deeper than the upper part, serving as the cradle of an an- 
ther. Stamens equal to the petals; Julaments inserted into 
the bottom of the calyx, upright; anthers yellow, round- 
ovate, 4-lobed. Germen bright green, smooth, oblate, tri- 
angular, surrounded by the thick glandular ring of the disk 
of the calyx: style 3-parted, blue, divisions filiform, fascicled, 
divergently recurved at the top, equal to the calyx, ter- 
minating in simple stigmatose points. 
