SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Urtica baccifera, foliis alternis, cordatis, dentatis, aculeis tectis: calyces fœminei, baccati, alternatim in ramos longos divaricatos positi, dependentes, læte rubri, et aculeis tecti: caulis aculeis magnis tectus.
Berry-bearing Nettle with leaves alternate, heart-shaped, toothed, and covered with prickles: empalement female, having berries, and alternately situated upon long straggling branches, hanging down, of a bright red colour, and covered with prickles: stem covered with large prickles.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A flower magnified.
2. The same with the summit detached, magnified.
This plant is most completely armed in all directions, and known by the appellation of the Horrid Nettle. The fierceness of its exterior evinces grandeur, and the bright red flower-stems combine some share of beauty: and notwithstanding its ferocious aspect, the Common Wild Hedge Nettle suffers a light approach with less impunity than this terrific plant; thus proving the old axiom of an open enemy, however powerful, being less injurious than a pretended friend, whose insidious character, like the Hedge Nettle, unheeded stings. In the Hortus Schœnbrunnensis of Jacquin it is described and figured, and also in the Icones of Plumier, p. 259, tab. 260, who gives it the additional specific of arborescens: and there is but little doubt of its forming a tree-like appearance in the Antilles and Blue Mountain Valley of Jamaica, where it is indigenous. The figure represents the upper part of a large specimen, communicated by A. B. Lambert, esq. with whom it flowered in the summer of 1804.[Pg 45]
PLATE CCCCLV.
POLYGALA MIXTA.