XXIV.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE JONESIA.
By Doctor Roxburgh.

C. HEPTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

ESSENTIAL CHARACTER.

ALYX, two-leaved, Corol, one-petaled, Pistil

CAL

bearing; base of the Tube impervious; Stamens long, ascending, inserted into the margin of a glandulous nectarial ring, which crowns the mouth of the tube, the uppermost two of which, more distant; Style declining. Legume turgid.

CONSECRATED to the remembrance of our late President, the most justly celebrated Sir William Jones, whose great knowledge of this science, independent of his other incomparable qualifications, justly entitles his memory to this mark of regard.

FOUND in gardens about Calcutta, where it grows to be a very handsome middling sized, ramous tree; flowering time the beginning of the hot season; Seeds ripen during the rains. The plants and seeds were, I am informed, originally brought from the interior parts of the country, where it is indigenous.

Trunk

Trunk ere, though not very straight.

Bark dark

brown, pretty smooth. Branches numerous, spreading in every direction, so as to form a most elegant shady head.

Leaves alternate, abruptly feathered, sessile, generally more than a foot long; when young pendulous and coloured.

Leaflets opposite, from four to six pair, the lowermost broad lanced, the upper lanced; smooth, shining, firm, a little waved, from four to eight inches long.

Petiole common, round and smooth..

Stipule axillary, solitary; in fact a process from the base of the common petiole, as in many of the grasses and monandrists, &c.

Umbels terminal and axillary; between the stipule

and branchlet, globular, crouded, subsessile, erect. Bracts, a small hearted one under each division of the umbel.

Peduncle and pedicels smooth, coloured.

Flowers very numerous, pretty large; when they first expand, they are of a beautiful orange colour, gradually changing to red, forming a variety of lovely shades; fragrant during the night.

Calyx perianth, below two-leaved, leaflets small, nearly opposite, coloured, hearted, bracte-like, marking the termination of the pedicel, or beginning of the tube of the corol.

Corol one-petal'd, funnel-form; tube slightly incurved, firm, and fleshy, tapering towards the base

VOL. IV.

3 B

(club

(club-funnel-shaped) and there impervious; border four-parted; divisions spreading, suborbicular; margins most slightly woolly: one-third the length of the tube.

Nectary a stimeniferous and pistiliferous ring crowns the mouth of the tube.

Stamens, filaments (generally) seven, and seven must, I think, be the natural number; viz. three on each side, and one below, above a vacancy, as if the place of an eight filament, and is occupied on its inside by the pistil; they are equal, distinc, ascending, from three to four times longer than the border of the corol.

Anthers uniform, small, incumbent.

Pistil, germ oblong, pediceled; pedicel inserted into the inside of the nectary, immediately below the vacant space already mentioned; Style nearly as long as the stamens, declining; Stigma simple. Pericarp, legume scimitar-form, turgid, outside reticulated, otherwise pretty smooth, from six to ten inches long, and about two broad.

Seeds generally from four to eight, smooth; gray, size of a large chesnut.

Note. Many of the flowers have only the rudiment of a piftil: a section of one of these is seen at D.

REFE

REFERENCES.

A. A branchlet natural size.

B. A single flower a little magnified, aa the calyx. C. A section of the same, exhibiting four of the stamens, 1.1.1.1. the pistil 2, and how far the tube is perforated.

D. A similar section of one of the abortive flowers; 3 is the abortive fistil.

E. The ripe legume opening near the base, natural size, Note, the space between the b and c marks the ariginal tube of the corol.

F. One of the seeds natural size.

G. The base of the common petiole, with its stipule ; aq the petioles of the lower pair of leaflets.