Blossom 4-cleft, or 4 petals. Tips linear, inserted into the petals below the end. Cup proper, none. Seeds solitary.
See Protea formosa, Pl. XVII. Vol. I.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Protea foliis eliptico-lanceolatis, apicibus callosis; capitulo globoso, terminali; foliolis calycinis ovatis, reflexis; floribus luteis.
Protea with eliptically-lance-shaped leaves, callous at the ends; head of flowers globular and terminal; leaflets of the cup egg-shaped, turned back; flowers yellow.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A Flower complete, natural size.
2. One of the Petals of a blossom, with its chive, magnified.
3. The Pointal, and Seed-bud, natural size.
4. The same, magnified.
5. The common Empalement.
This species of Protea, though it does not stand among the foremost of its congeners in competition for beauty; yet, has its merits, and those of no small moment, as a hardy green-house plant; for it rarely misses flowering, in the month of May, annually, and its blossoms continue in perfection at least two months. It is seldom hurt by cold or wet, if not exposed to either in the extreme. Is easily propagated from cuttings, made in the month of May, or June; by the same mode as has been described for the increasing the preceding species of the Genus, already figured in this work. We owe the first introduction of this plant to Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith, who raised it from seeds, in the year 1786, received from the Cape of Good Hope. Our figure was made from a plant in the Hibbertian collection.[Pg 39]
