STRELLTZIA REGINIE;
OR,
QUEEN PLANT.
THIs is one of the many lovely productions imported from the Cape of Good
Hope, introduced
into our gardens by Sir JOSEPH BANKS, Bart. K. B. the illustrious and most
indefatigable pro-
moter of the science of Natural History.   Its leaves are coriaceous and
spoon-shaped, often undu-
lated at the base, inwardly of a deep green, and outwardly beautifully glaucous.
The flowers are
of a bright orange, tripetalled, inclosed at first by two long membranous
calyx leaves, which drop
as the flower rises from the common spatha, and these appear in succession,
each re'tiring back-
ward, to give place to other flowers.  These three petals of the corolla
encompass the beautiful
nectarium, which is diphyllous, that is, composed of two leaves, one shaped
like an anchor ex-
teriorly, and hollowed interiorly, inclosing in a groove the five stamina,
remarkable for long
anthers, through which duplicature also passes the style, whose triangular
and pointed stigma,
finally reaching beyond the bifid end of this part of the nectary, makes
the anchor resemblance
perfect.  The other petal of the nectary is smaller, shaped like a cowl,
and hooked.   Nature
here seems to aim at deception, the beaked spatha, upon its long and round
stalk, or scape,
gives the simi1itude of the head of some species of crane, and the flowers
above feign its top-
knot; and even the expert botanist at first sight might imagine that the
purple nectary on one
side was a stamen, with its barbed anther, and on the other the stigma, as
in the orchis tribe: but
upon dissection all this confusion vanishes, and it easily arranges under
Class V. PENTANDRIA,
Order I. MONOGYNIA, of Linnaeus, each flower possessing five stamina, and
one pistillum.  We
have been so fortunate as to be favoured with the following Verses on this
Plant by the present Poet Laureat.
ON Afric's southern steep, where Gama's sail
To the tempestuous clime was first unfurl'd,
Courting with ample sweet the dangerous gale,
And op'd to Europe's sons the Eastern World,
Heroes, beyond the Demi-Gods of Greece,
By Jason led, and urg'd by Orpheus' lyre,
Seeking, through wilder seas a richer fleece,
While warlike Camoens * wak'd the epic wire.
Oft as the Genius of the stormy main
From the high promontory view'd the wave,
lie saw with daring prow Britannia's train,
The angry winds and mountain surges brave,
GEORGE'S parental sway, and Albion's laws,
Spreading where Ammon's empire never spread,
To Thames' blest stream her stores while Commerce draws
From Ganges' Bramin groves and Indus' bed:
* A famous Portuguese Poet, Author of the Lusiad.
Ii