The species of Ricinus here depicted, was raised in Lady Holland’s garden at Kensington last summer, from seeds sent by her ladyship from Malta, where the plant has been cultivated for medicinal purposes about four years; and where it is considered as a new sort. And such indeed it appears to us: for as a species, although it comes extremely near to R. communis, R. inermis, and perhaps R. medicus of Forskall, it appears to be sufficiently distinct; differing from the former and latter, in its deeper cloven, and more numerously lobed, and glandular petioled leaves; and from R. inermis, in having its capsules thickly beset with considerable, but herbaceous spines; whence our specific name of armatus, in contradistinction also to R. inermis, which has smooth capsules. The plant from which our drawing was taken was eight feet high and very much branched; and its ample yet elegant foliage, and red stalks and veins, communicated that kind of appearance to it which is often attributed to Asiatic plants--stately, and magnificent. Its root is biennial; it requires the protection of the green-house, and can be increased very readily by seeds, which should be raised on a hot-bed in spring, and afterwards transplanted into very large pots. There were two glands at the top of the petioles. The valuable drug called castor oil is extracted from the seeds of this and other species of Ricinus. [Illustration] PLATE CCCCXXXI. CÆSULIA AXILLARIS. _Axillary-flowered Cæsulia._ CLASS XIX. ORDER I. _SYNGENESIA POLYGAMIA ÆQUALIS._ Tips united. Æqual Polygamy. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. RECEPTACULUM paleaceum, paleis semina involventibus. Pappus nullus. Calyx triphyllus. RECEPTACLE chaffy, with the chaff enveloping the seeds. Down none. Empalement three-leaved. SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &c. CÆSULIA, foliis lanceolatis basi attenuatis serratis alternis. _Willd. Sp. Pl. 3. 1796._ CÆSULIA, with alternate lanceolate serrated leaves attenuated at the base. REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. A floret with its seed enveloped by the chaff. 2. The same divested of its seed and chaff. 3. The same spread open and magnified. 4. The seed-bud, pointal, and chaff. 5. and 6. The same in different states. Novelty, oddity, and a very unusual appearance in every part, for a syngenesious plant, must in the present subject compensate for its trifling flowers. Few of our cultivating friends, except those who are the most botanical, will be inclined to add this Cæsulia to their collections; although a very rare, and, in many respects, an interesting species. It was first described and figured by Dr. Roxburgh, as a new genus, and by the name it here bears, in his sumptuous work on the plants of the coast of Coromandel, of which country it is a native; and it has since been taken up by Professor Willdenow, in his edition of Species Plantarum, and has had a new species (the _radicans_), from Guinea, added to it by that botanist.