ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
Corolla 4-fida, seu 4-petala. Antheræ lineares, petalis infra apices insertæ. Calyx proprius, nullus. Sem. solitaria.
Blossom four-cleft, or of four petals. Tips linear, inserted into the petals below the points. Cup proper, none. Seeds solitary.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Protea teretifolia, foliis obtusis: junioribus adscendentibus, senioribus patentibus: floribus luteis, capitatis, terminalibus, foliis circumsessis: post florescentiam conus formatur.
Protea with cylindrical leaves blunt-ended: the younger ascending, and the older ones spreading: flowers yellow, headed, terminal, and surrounded by the leaves: and after flowering a cone is formed.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A flower.
2. A chive magnified.
3. Seed-bud and pointal.
4. Flower-branch of a small variety.
This little Protea is more desirable, by way of contrast to those splendid imbricated species, than for any beauty it possesses, and exhibits powerfully the great diversity of character annexed to this numerous genus. Attached to the dissections is part of the branch of a minor variety, and which is by some considered as specifically distinct: and were extension our object, it certainly might be made a separate species, from the difference of its character after flowering, the larger one forming a cone the size of an egg; which the lesser one does not. It also differs in the manner of its growth; but only in the dried specimens which we have seen that have been collected from old plants at the Cape; and in them the small variety forms its branches after the manner of a corymbus, and the plant has thence received the appellation of corymbosa. But had we given a separate figure of it, we could not (without making an awkward apology) have adopted a specific title whose characteristic appearance it might never acquire in this climate, and which our figure would not have possessed. By placing it amongst the variations these objections are obviated, and the appearance of repetition avoided: a desirable object in a genus so extended as Protea; and we shall take every opportunity of abbreviating as much as possible the number of slight varieties, particularly when their attractions are not considerable. Our drawing was made from plants in the Hibbertian collection.[Pg 59]
