Everlasting-flower, with the stem leaves linear, roundish, bundled, very long; flowers solitary; the scales of the cup lance-shaped, and pale yellow.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A scale of the cup.
2. An hermaphrodite floret, with its seed, magnified.
3. A female floret, with its seed, magnified.
4. The Pointal of a female floret, magnified.
Amongst the number of very beautiful plants introduced by Mr. Niven, and which now enrich that fund of botanical rarity, the Clapham collection, this species of Xeranthemum does not stand the least conspicuous. Twelve years since we possessed but four species of this genus, viz. X. fulgidum, X. retortum, X. vestitum, and X. speciocissimum; now they extend to fourteen. The others, as well as the foregoing, are all (but one, the X. lucidum of Port Jackson, New South Wales) from the Cape of Good Hope, and introduced to us from thence, by various hands, in the following order; X. proliferum, through Holland, by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy; X. formosum and X. candicans by the same, from Cape seeds; X. sessamoides by Mrs. Gostling, of Hounslow; X. filiforme by Mr. Dunn, of Cambridge; X. fasciculatum and X. truncatum by G. Hibbert, Esq. X. argenteum and X. spirale by Montague Burgoyne, Esq. of Mark Hall, Essex. They are very subject to damp in the leaves, from a confined air therefore, should be kept in the window, or most airy part of the greenhouse. The most sandy peat that can be procured is the best for their growth. They may be all, thus, propagated by cuttings, taken off in the early part of the month of June; put these into a pot filled with sand, and covered by a bell-glass the size of the pot; plunge it in a north or east border, and let the whole be covered with a hand glass, which must be kept quite close till the cuttings are rooted; then the inner glass must be removed, and in about a week the pot maybe taken from under the outer one, when the plants may be removed into small pots in about a fortnight. Our present plant seldom grows higher than two feet, of which, at least, one is the foot-stalks of the flowers; it continues in flower from March till September.[Pg 398]
