Empalement five-cleft. Blossom butterfly-shaped. Pod egg-shaped, beardless, nearly two-seeded.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Aspalathus foliis ramos vestientibus, linearibus, tomentosis: floribus terminalibus, in capitulo rotundato villoso confertis: corollis fuscis: ramis longis, gracilibus.
Aspalathus with leaves clothing the branches, linear, and downy: flowers terminal, crowded together in a round woolly head: blossom brown: branches long and slender.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A flower.
2. The empalement spread open.
3. The standard.
4. One of the wings.
5. The keel.
6. The chives.
7. The same magnified.
8. Seed-bud and pointal.
9. The same magnified.
This nondescript species of Aspalathus we have not seen in any collection but that of G. Hibbert, esq. where in the summer of 1801 it was in fine bloom, full three feet high, and its long pendulous branches gave it a very graceful appearance. Its compact globular heads of flowers remained a considerable time in perfection; but the close soft hair with which they were surrounded, indicated a delicacy of habit too susceptible of the damps which have since destroyed the plant, and we believe it is for the present lost to this country.[Pg 37]
[Pg 38]