Crotalaria caule hirsuto; foliis simplicibus, elliptico-obovatis, integerrimis, sericeis, nitentibus; leguminibus calyce tectis bracteisque strigoso-sericeis.
Crotalaria with a hairy stem; simple, elliptical, inversely oval, entire, silky, shining leaves: the pods, the calyx which covers them, and the bracts, all shining with silky hairs.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The empalement.
2. The standard.
3. One of the wings.
4. The keel.
5. Chives and pointal.
6. The seed-bud and pointal.
The choice collection of the late Lady Amelia Hume, at Wormley-bury, Herts, which before furnished us with the magnificent and unrivalled Pæonia papaveracea, has again produced us this new species of Crotalaria, seeds of which were received by her ladyship, about the year 1807, from the East Indies, under the name of C. pulcherrima, which we have abridged to pulchra, as we can hardly presume to say which species is most beautiful before we have seen the whole genus, which, from the large catalogue of Indian species by Dr. Roxburgh in his unpublished Indian Flora, a copy of which we have seen in the collection of A. B. Lambert, esq. (besides the forty-four species already published by Willdenow) we think is not soon likely to happen.
Crotalaria pulchra is as yet in very few collections in this country, nor have we heard of its blossoming in any other collection. The foreign specimens which we have seen with the Catalogue above mentioned in the same collection have very large spreading bunches of flowers, and there can be no doubt but the plants in this country, when a little stronger, will blossom with equal profusion. The plant is a native of the Mysore country in the East Indies. We received the specimen in the middle of March last.
