This plant is most completely armed in all directions, and known by the appellation of the Horrid Nettle. The fierceness of its exterior evinces grandeur, and the bright red flower-stems combine some share of beauty: and notwithstanding its ferocious aspect, the Common Wild Hedge Nettle suffers a light approach with less impunity than this terrific plant; thus proving the old axiom of an open enemy, however powerful, being less injurious than a pretended friend, whose insidious character, like the Hedge Nettle, unheeded stings. In the Hortus Schœnbrunnensis of Jacquin it is described and figured, and also in the Icones of Plumier, p. 259, tab. 260, who gives it the additional specific of arborescens: and there is but little doubt of its forming a tree-like appearance in the Antilles and Blue Mountain Valley of Jamaica, where it is indigenous. The figure represents the upper part of a large specimen, communicated by A. B. Lambert, esq. with whom it flowered in the summer of 1804. [Illustration] PLATE CCCCLV. POLYGALA MIXTA. _Mixt Polygala._ CLASS XVII. ORDER III. _DIADELPHIA OCTANDRIA._ Two Brotherhoods. Eight Chives. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. CALYX 5-phyllus: foliolis duobus alæformibus, coloratis: legumen obcordatum, biloculare. Cup 5-leaved, with two of the leaves like wings, coloured: pod inverse heart-shaped, two-celled. SPECIFIC CHARACTER. POLYGALA floribus imberbibus, axillaribus, purpureis: foliis fasciculatis, 5-6 in singulo fasciculo, linearibus, acutis, valde confertis inter flores: caule suffruticoso: ramulis filiformibus, patentibus. POLYGALA with beardless flowers, growing from the axillæ of the leaves, and of a purple colour: the leaves grow in fascicles, 5 and 6 in each fascicle, linear, sharp-pointed, and very much crowded amongst the flowers: stem shrubbyish: branches thread-shaped, and spreading. REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. The empalement magnified. 2. The keel magnified. 3. One of the wings magnified. 4. The chives magnified. 5. The pointal magnified. 6. Flower of a white variety. Amongst the numerous introductions of novelty to the gardens of G. Hibbert, esq. the Hesteria section of the genus Polygala (although not splendid) are all of them particularly desirable, from their lively, long, and (of this species) we may say continual bloom; it having been seen in flower throughout the whole year. There is a variety of it with white flowers of equal durability, and so perfect a fac-simile in every other particular, that a separate figure will by no means be requisite, especially as in the winter season the purple flowers are sometimes almost bleached by the cold, and the distinction in consequence less apparent. It is well known by the cultivators under the appellation of _mixta_; a specific given to it from the promiscuous manner in which the flowers and leaves are profusely mixt together. [Illustration]