_Miller’s Icones, tab. 90._ CEREUS with a climbing or creeping stem, branching, jointed, with small side-roots: branches six-or eight-angled, bearing starry prickles. Empalement rayed and yellow. Blossom white. Flowers large, expanding in the evening, and breathing a most fragrant odour. REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. A flower divested of the petals, and spread open. This elegant hot-house plant has been figured by several authors, and is well known by the appellation of the Night-blowing Cereus, and yet but few of Flora’s lovely train, warmed by the mid-day sun’s refulgent beams, in splendour can compare with this nocturnal beauty, whose brilliant flowers expand about sun-set. But, alas! too soon condemned to fade, they close up early on the following morn. Sometimes they have been found unclosed almost within an hour of noon: a circumstance that very rarely happens, as it generally displays its graceful blossoms to Cynthia’s silver beams, perfuming the still cool air of midnight with its aromatic fragrance. Our figure was taken from a plant in the collection of the Dowager Lady de Clifford at Dudley Grove, Paddington. [Illustration] PLATE DIX. GENTIANA FIMBRIATA. _Fringed-flowered Gentian._ CLASS V. ORDER II. _PENTANDRIA DIGYNIA._ Five Chives. Two Pointals. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. CALYX monophyllus. Corolla monopetala. Capsula bivalvis, unilocularis, receptaculis duobus longitudinalibus. EMPALEMENT one-leafed. Blossom one petal. Capsule two-valved, one-celled, with two longitudinal receptacles. SPECIFIC CHARACTER. GENTIANA corollis quadrifidis, marginibus fimbriatis, colore cæruleo, in sole tantùm expandentibus, spithamæis: foliis ovato-acuminatis, oppositis, alternatis. Habitat in America boreali. GENTIAN with blossoms four-cleft, and fringed margins, of a blue colour, expanding only in the sun, a span high, with ovate-pointed leaves opposite and alternate. Native of North America. REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. The empalement. 2. A blossom spread open. 3. Seed-bud and pointals. 4. The same spread open. This new and undescribed species of Gentian possesses many attractions. Its flowers are of a fine shining purply blue colour, and remain a long time in perfection, but only expand with the assistance of solar ray. Our figure represents a group of seedling plants, just as we found them growing in a small pot in the nursery of Messrs. Whitley and Brames, who inform me they raised them from seed, and they flowered the second year, but think they will only prove biennial. [Illustration] PLATE DX. ASPALATHUS GLOBOSUS. _Round-flowering Aspalathus._ CLASS XVII. ORDER IV. _DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA._ Threads in two Sets. Ten Chives. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. CALYX quinquefidus. Corolla papilionacea. Legumen ovatum, inaristatum, sub-dispermum.