DESCRIPTION.
Stem shrubby, a foot and half high, and upright, with numerous small branches.
Leaves by fours, linear, long, and between erect and spreading.
Flowers terminate the small branches, mostly by fours, nodding: blossom cylindrical and shining, the lower part of a bright red colour, the mouth green.
Seed-bud turban-shaped and furrowed, hairy on the upper part, and furnished at the base with honey-bearing nectaries.
Native of the Cape of Good Hope.
Flowers from the month of July till October.
REFERENCE.
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1. The Empalement. 2. The Chives and Pointal, one tip magnified. 3. Seed-bud and Pointal, summit magnified. 4. Seed-bud magnified. 5. Smaller-flowered varieties. |
Our figure was taken in 1819 from plants in the Hammersmith collection, and considered as a seminal variety of the E. versicolor, though it certainly more resembles the E. hirta: but from these and every other species of Erica it may be always distinguished just previously to flowering, by the empalements forming a terminal cone at the end of each flower-branch of a rich deep red colour, which only separate to allow the bright green ends of the buds to make their first approach towards maturity: it is therefore beautiful in every stage of inflorescence.[Pg 195]