Ixia with scimitar-shaped leaves, waved at the edge; flowers alternate, blowing at night, and smelling of cinnamon.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Empalement.
2. A Flower cut open, with the Chives attached.
3. The Chives, attached to the tubular part of the Blossom, the border cut off, (magnified).
4. The Shaft, Summit, and Seed-bud, (magnified).
Amongst this most extensive genus no species stands more distinct than this. The extreme sweetness and delicacy of its blossoms, which expand only by night, and close in the morning, give it a decided superiority over many of its congeners. Thunberg, who saw it at the Cape, has described it under the name it here bears; but till the year 1792 we had no knowledge of it, when it was first introduced by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith, from the Cape of Good Hope; at whose nursery it flowered the following year; where it continues to blow annually, and whence this figure was taken. It is rather a tender bulb, small, and easily rotted; should therefore be placed in the warmest part of the greenhouse, and kept dry when out of flower; is rather difficult to increase, as each bulb seldom produces more than one offset, nor that always, and rarely seeds.[Pg 178]
PLATE 44
