Upon his journey across the rocky mountains in April 1827, in latitude 52° N., longitude 118° W., at an estimated elevation of 12,000 feet above the level of the sea, the attention of Mr. Douglas was attracted by a brilliant purple patch amidst the surrounding snow. On approaching it, he was surprised to find that the colour which had arrested his eye was caused by the blossoms of a little plant, from which the superincumbent snow had not yet melted away. The well-known Saxifraga oppositifolia immediately occurred to his recollection, and he at first imagined he had either discovered that species, or one nearly allied to it; but upon a closer inspection, he perceived that it was no Saxifraga, but a genus apparently new. Specimens having been submitted to me for examination since Mr. Douglas’s return, the following description has been drawn up:—
The plant forms a thick tuft consisting of numerous perennial branched stems, the lower of which are covered with the persistent decayed leaves and fruit of previous summers. The stems are round, bright purplish brown, covered with scattered, rigid, branched, short hairs, and densely clothed with opposite spreading leaves. The leaves are a dull glaucous green, semi-amplexicaul, [p384] linear, obtuse, about five lines long and three-quarters of a line broad, so closely covered with hairs like those of the stem, that the whole epidermis is hidden. Their veins are concealed by the hairs; but if the latter are removed, they appear to consist of a thickened mid-rib, and a few nearly simple spreading venæ primariæ. The flowers proceed from the axillæ of the upper leaves, from three to six on each little branch; at first they are sessile, but their foot-stalks subsequently lengthen by degrees until the fruit is ripe, when they are from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in length, and covered with the same sort of hairs as the leaves and stem. The calyx is hairy in like manner, obconical, angular, with five equal erect narrowly triangular teeth, about the length of the tube. The corolla is of a vivid purple colour, infundibuliform, wholly destitute of pubescence; the tube is a little ventricose and rather longer than the calyx, its whole length being about three lines; the limb is spreading, five-parted with cuneate, oblong, obtuse, segments; the orifice is guarded by five transversely linear calli, placed under each sinus, and corresponding to the same number of external depressions of the neck of the tube. The anthers are linear oblong, nearly sessile, opposite the segments of the corolla, and a little enclosed within the tube. The ovarium is superior, of an obovate figure, one-celled, with a central, free, fungilliform placenta, the lower edge of which has five teeth corresponding to an equal number of peltate ovula; the style is filiform, as long as the tube of the corolla, and continuous with the ovarium; stigma, a minute depressed cup. The capsule is of a cartilaginous texture, surrounded by the persistent calyx; one-celled, with five recurving valves; the seeds are two, peltate, oblong, convex on the outside, concave in the inside, dark brown, covered closely with minute dots or depressions; four only having been found, their internal organization has not been determined.
Hence it appears that, with the exception of the interior of the seed, the whole structure of the plant is determinable: it is also obvious that it is referable to Primulaceæ, of which it possesses all the characters. In fact it is closely akin both to Primula and Androsace. From both these genera, however, [p385] its ovarium which exhibits the greatest instance of reduction of ovula yet known in the order, and its dispermous capsule, with oblong concave seeds, readily and essentially distinguish it.
I have, therefore, named it after its indefatigable discoverer, whose active and successful researches in its native country, richly entitle him to the distinction.
DOUGLASIA.
NAT. ORD. Primulaceæ; inter Primulam et Androsacen.
Calyx obconicus, angulatus, 5-dentatus. Corolla infundibularis, tubo ventricoso, limbo plano 5-partito, fauce callo lineari sub utroque sinu. Ovarium uniloculare placentâ centrali liberâ pedicellatâ fungilliformi, margine 5-dentato; ovula 5 dentibus placentæ opposita. Capsula vestita, unilocularis, 5-valvis. Semina duo concava scrobiculata.—Cæspes suffruticulosus (Americæ borealis), foliis indivisis, pube rigidâramosâ, floribus axillaribus solitariis.
Sp. 1. Douglasia nivalis.
A Description of the Aurora Borealis seen in London on the Evening and Night of the 25th of September, 1827; with Critical Remarks upon other Descriptions of the same, and previous Appearances of the Meteor, both in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. By E. A. Kendall, Esq., F.S.A. [◊]
ON the evening and right of the 25th of September last, the horizon of the metropolis, toward the north, and toward the north-west and the north-east, exhibited a remarkable display of the meteor or phenomenon called, after the example of the Italian philosopher Gassendi, Aurora Borealis.