Wurmbea with hooded, lance-shaped leaves; spike many-flowered; flowers sitting close to the stem and dark-purple.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A Blossom cut and spread open, with the Chives in their place.
2. The Pointals, natural size.
3. The same, magnified.
This genus was first formed by Thunberg as distinct from Melanthium, in his Dissertatio Nova Genera Plantarum, under the title Wurmbea, from the construction of the blossom, which in this, is formed of one petal, but in that, is composed of six; a distinction which has always been considered as momentous, in determining the limits of the different genera of this class; since which, however, it has been abandoned by him, and thrown to Melanthium; although Schreber, in his Genera Plantarum, G. 617. p. 239. Vol. I. made no scruple in adopting it. Willdenow has, in his Species Plantarum, G. 703. p. 265. T. 11. P. 1. we think with propriety, renewed its claims to particular distinction, under the first title; but with this difference, that out of the four varieties given by Thunberg, all under the specific name of capensis, he has made three species; reserving his opinion on the fourth, our present plant, and the second Var. of Thunberg, for want, as he observes, of proper documents. Now, as our ideas run not exactly with Willdenow, in this alteration; but thinking with Thunberg, who must have seen the plants alive, and thence, of course, the best judge; we have the rather followed him; as we possess drawings of two more of the varieties quoted by him, taken from living specimens, and whose trifling difference of character does not warrant them to be treated as specifically different, but as mere varieties of each other.
The roots of this species, with the others, of which we have drawings, were received by G. Hibbert, Esq. in the year 1800, from the Cape of Good Hope. The bulbs are solid like those of Ixia, &c. but of a most singular form, having an appendage at the base like the pat of a mole. None of the varieties we have seen produce more than three leaves, which sheath the flower-stem one above the other, and are rather longer than it. It flourishes in sandy peat earth, and flowers in May or June; but has, certainly, more to recommend it to our notice from its singularity, as forming a separate genus; than from its beauty. Our figure was taken from the Clapham collection.[Pg 314]
