Botanical Magazine 106 - 1880.pdf - hibiscus.org

specific distinction is founded, being a most inconstant
character in the specimens I have examined. From W.
Kitaibelii, figured at Tab. 6188 of this work, this species
differs conspicuously in the long involucral bracts, as also
in the absence of accessory teeth in the sinus between the
calyx-segments, a character omitted in the plate referred to.
W. tenuifolia flowered in the rock-work at Kew, from
roots received from M. Fröbel of Zurich, under the name
of Edraianthus caudatus, a species differing from this in
the very short broad calyx-segments ; it flowered in August
of last year.
DESOR. Boot stout, spindle-shaped, giving off from the
crown a tuft of slender leaves, and several procumbent
flowering-stems. Leaves one and a half to four inches
long, by one-eighth of an inch wide, glabrous or hairy,
margins with slender spinulose teeth, which are erect and
curved inwards on the surface of the leaf. Flowering-stems
usually shorter than the leaves, hairy or glabrate, with few
linear leaves, which are much shorter than the radical ones.
Heads two inches in diameter, four- to eight-flowered ;
bracts one to one and a half inches long, linear from a
broadly ovate or almost orbicular base, hairy, the outer
longer than the flowers, flexuous. Floivers sessile. Calyx-
tube short ; segments linear, hairy. Corolla half to three-
quarters of an inch long, narrowly campanulate, pubescent,
pale violet-blue. Filaments broadly ovate-subulate, hairy.
Style thickened upwards and hairy, suddenly contracted
into a glabrous top with two short stigmas.•J. D. H.
Fig. 1, flower ; 2, calyx-tube, stamens, and style ; 3, stamens ; 4, stigmas ; 5,
vertical section of ovary ; 6, marginal cilia of leaves :•all but fig. 1 enlarged.