1. The Empalement, natural size.
2. The same, magnified.
3. The Seed-buds and pointal, natural size.
4. The same magnified.
5. A Blossom cut open, magnified, to shew the scales upon the mouth,
with the situation of the chives.
This is the only species of the Genus we have yet seen from the Cape of Good Hope; and, as it appears that Thunberg discovered but this solitary instance, which he has given in his Prodromus Plantarum Capensium, under the specific title we have here adopted, from him; he, perhaps, thought himself warranted in so naming it; although naming plants from the country where they are first found requires but little reasoning to shew its impropriety. It is a hardy green-house plant, but from all appearance, like the most of this natural order, rather short-lived. It grows freely in a mixture of loam and sandy peat; and there is every appearance that the seeds will ripen, the only method by which there is any likelihood of its being perpetuated.
The plant, before flowering, does not grow above six inches high; but the flower-stem rises near eighteen inches. Our figure was taken from a plant in the Hibbertian Collection; where it flowered for the first time in England in the month of July 1803; having been sent home, by Mr. Niven, from the Cape, in 1800.[Pg 97]
PLATE CCCXXXVII.
PROTEA TRITERNATA.
Cluster-headed Protea.
CLASS IV. ORDER I.
TETRANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Four Chives. One Pointal.