Cerbera foliis lanceolatis, utrinque attenuatis, undulatis; cymis ramosis, divaricatis, axillaribus.
Cerbera with lance-shaped leaves tapered to both ends, and waved; tufts of flowers branching into various directions, and growing from the foot-stalks of the leaves close to the stem.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Empalement, magnified.
2. The Blossom cut open, with the Chives as they stand in the tube, magnified.
3. The Empalement, with the pointal after the blossom has fallen off, magnified.
4. The Seed-bud, magnified.
This conspicuously handsome plant was introduced by W. Forsyth, Esq. to the Chelsea Gardens in the year 1782, from the island of Bourbon, now the Isle de la Revolution, near the coast of Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean. It grows to a very considerable height, perfectly straight, and polished in the stem, something like the Bamboo Cane, from which appearance, till it flowered, it had gone by the name of the fishing rod plant. It must be kept in the bark-bed of the hothouse in rich mould, and should be removed from its pot but seldom, the roots being extremely tender and brittle. The propagation is slow and difficult, as well from the great tendency the part has to rot, where cut, as from the unfrequency of its throwing out any side shoots from the stem. Our drawing was made in July this year, at the Hammersmith nursery; though we understand it flowered in the extensive collection of the Right Hon. the Earl of Tankerville at Walton-upon-Thames, some years since.
Having followed Willdenow, rather than Jacquin, in the Generic name of this plant, our reason is, each species which has hitherto been thrown to this Genus, since its first formation, might well make a distinct one; if every generic or even essential, character, was to be critically attended to. The fruit forming the principal essential character, a specimen of which we have seen, containing two large seeds like C. Manghas, determined us in our adoption.
The descriptions and figures of the two plants, given by Professor Jacquin in his Icon. rar. 2, and Collect. 4, under the genus Ochrosia, are, we conceive, only different specimens of our plant; and are both, as well as Dryander’s critique on Gmelin (see Linn. Trans. Vol. II. p. 227) defective; neither of them having seen but dried specimens, without the fruit; as in this natural order of plants, the flowers being mostly fleshy, many of the principal characters are destroyed in the process of drying; and of course, in such case, must lead to error. Jacquin’s character of maculata, quoted by Willdenow as a specific title, though he has rejected the Generic, we suppose, must have been taken from the small blotches on the lower, and which sometimes pervade the upper surface of the leaves, but found only when in the last state of decay, or when artificially dried to preserve them; as by the pressure necessarily employed to that end, the waved, and most ostensible character of the living plant, is done away. As to the C. parviflora of Forster being the same, as either, the Ochrosia borbonica or O. maculata of Jacquin, we must beg leave to dissent from the severe criticiser of Gmelin; upon whose authority, nevertheless, Willdenow has been led to exclude, even as a synonim, the O. borbonica of Prof. Jacquin, which perhaps, if it were not for the increasing of Genera, ought to be the name of the plant.[Pg 527]
PLATE 130
