3. The Shaft and its Summit, the summit detached and magnified.
The Tube-flowered Gardenia was introduced to Britain, in the year 1789, from Sierra Leone, and must, therefore, be treated as a tender hot-house plant. It grows, with us, to the height of about two feet before it flowers; and, from the beauty and size of the leaves, the regular, opposite manner in which it forms its branches, becomes a very handsome shrub. The flowers, which are produced in July, grow generally three together, at right angles, from the insertion of the leaves, in a bunch, which lasts about six or eight days, having but one flower open and perfect at a time, the decaying ones becoming brown. It is propagated, with ease, by cuttings, made in the month of March, and kept under a bell-glass, in a pot of stiffish loam, in the bark-bed of the hot-house, or a melon frame. The agreeable character, of a delicate fragrance, attendant on the blossoms of most species of this genus, is eminently powerful in this. Our drawing was made at the Hammersmith nursery; where, it was first raised, from seeds received in a present, by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, from the Hon. Sierra Leone Company.[Pg 160]
PLATE CLXXXIV.
PERGULARIA MINOR.
Smaller Pergularia, or West-coast Creeper.
CLASS XX. ORDER VI. of Linn. Gen. Plan. 1764.
GYNANDRIA DECANDRIA. Chives on the Pointal. Ten Chives.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx. Perianthium monophyllum, quinquefidum, erectum, acutum, persistens.
Corolla monopetala, hypocrateriformis; tubus cylindricus, calyce longior; limbus quinquepartitus, planus; laciniis oblongis.