Though apparently common in our gardens formerly, it is now very rarely met with.
_Cal._ 4-phyllus. _Cor._ 4-fida. _Filamenta_ receptaculo inferta. _Antheræ_ bifidæ. _Caps._ 4-locularis.
ERICA _grandiflora_ antheris muticis exfertis, corollis cylindraceis subincurvis glabris, stylo elongato, floribus axillaribus pedunculatis, foliis subsenis acerosis glabris. _Ait. Hort. Kew. vol. 2. p. 25._
ERICA _grandiflora_ foliis quaternis, stylo exserto, corolla cylindrica, calyce simplici, floribus lateralibus subcurvatis. _Linn. Suppl. Pl. p. 223._
The Erica here figured, is one of the many new and beautiful species, which within these few years have been sent from the Cape by Mr. MASSON, and which have contributed so greatly to enrich the royal garden at Kew.
The description given of the _grandiflora_ in the _Suppl. Plant_. accords so ill with our plant, that we should be led to consider it as another species, did not the respectable authority of the _Hortus Kewensis_ silence all doubts on that head.
The blossoms of this species, whether we regard their magnitude, their colour, their smooth and glossy surface, or the regular position of the filaments, projecting beyond the corolla, and closing together by the antheræ, excite our notice, and claim our admiration.
Like every other heath, the hardy ones excepted, it is a greenhouse plant, and flowers from May to July.
Our drawing was made from a plant finely blown, in the collection of JAMES VERE, Esq. Kensington-Gore.
ORNITHOGALUM AUREUM. GOLDEN ORNITHOGALUM.
_Cor._ 6-petala, erecta, persistens, supra medium patens, _Filamenta_ alterna basi dilatata.
ORNITHOGALUM _aureum_ foliis ovato-lanceolatis, albomargmatis, floribus racemosis confertis, filamentis nectario emarginato infidentibus.
We have bestowed on this plant the name of _aureum_, from the colour of its blossoms, which are usually of a bright orange or gold colour; in some specimens we have observed them of a paler hue, and consequently less beautiful.
This highly ornamental species is of modern introduction, having been received by Mess. LEE and KENNEDY, a few years since from the Cape, of which it is a native.
The root is a whitish bulb, resembling in size and shape that of the _Lachenalia tricolor_, figured on plate 82 of this work, from whence spring three or four smooth, somewhat fleshy, upright, dark-green leaves, about half an inch wide, and three or four inches long, edged with white, and, if magnified, appearing fringed with very fine hairs or villi; the stalk is naked, from eight to twelve inches high, supporting many flowers, which spring from the alæ of large, hollow, pointed bracteæ, and which opening one after another, keep the plant a considerable time in flower; according to LINNÆUS'S generic character, every other filament should be dilated at the base, in the present species each filament is so, or rather sits as it were on a white glandular nectary, emarginated on the inside, and highly deserving of notice.