REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 1. The empalement. 2. A blossom spread open. 3. Seed-bud and pointal. * * * * * This rare plant, enumerated in the Hortus Kewensis upon the authority of Sutherland’s Catalogue of the Plants in the Physic Garden at Edinburgh, published in 1683, has been long a desideratum in our collections. It grows naturally in dry sandy places about Montpelier, and also in the southern provinces of the Russian empire, from whence we have seen fine specimens collected by Professor Pallas in Mr. Lambert’s Herbarium, which now contains the whole collection made at the expense of the Russian Government, during the space of 30 years, by that great naturalist and his assistants. The plant is well calculated for ornamenting rock-works, or light sandy and gravelly borders. The roots are an article of trade, and used to give a red colour to oils, wax, and spirits of wine. Linnæus, after having very properly arranged this plant as a Lithospermum in the first edition of his Species Plantarum, afterwards removed it to the genus Anchusa, which alteration has since been adopted by every editor of his works. The character, however, is decidedly that of a Lithospermum; and the alteration would be difficult to account for, were it not for a memorandum of the late M. L’Heritier (published in the Flore Française), stating that he had seen another plant under that name in the Linnæan herbarium. It therefore appears that Linnæus, after having described the true plant, from his not possessing a specimen of it had afterwards mistaken some species of Anchusa for it. The plant, however, was retained in its proper genus by Gerard in his Flora Gallico-Provincialis, and he has since been followed by Decandolle in the Flore Française. We are aware of Professor Vahl and Willdenow’s having given to another Lithospermum the name of tinctorium; but if the genus Arnebia of Forskahl is given up, the characteristic specific of tetrastigma applied to it by Lamarck may be restored. We have never seen any figure of the plant but that of Plenck, Aubriet’s in Alyon’s Cours de Botanique, and the wooden cut of John Bauhin; the plant figured under the name of Anchusa tinctoria in Woodville’s Medical Botany being the Anchusa officinalis. Specimens were communicated by A. B. Lambert, esq., and there is also a fine spreading plant of it now in blossom (May 27th) in the natural ground, in Mr. Harrison’s nursery at Brompton. [Illustration] PLATE DLXXVII. PROTEA VIRGATA. _Twiggy Protea._ CLASS IV. ORDER I. _TETRANDRIA MONOGYNIA._ Four Chives. One Pointal. ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER. COROLLA 4-fida, seu 4-petala. Antheræ lineares, petalis infra apices insertæ. Calyx proprius, nullus. Semina solitaria. BLOSSOM four-cleft, or of four petals. Tips linear, inserted into the petals below the points. Cup proper, none. Seeds solitary. SPECIFIC CHARACTER.