Allamanda Cathartica. Willow-Leav'd Allamanda.
Class and Order.
Pentandria Monogynia.
Generic Character.
Contorta. Caps. lenticularis erecta echinata 1-locularis polysperma. Semina bractÆata.
Specific Character and Synonyms.
ALLAMANDA cathartica. Linn. Mant. p. 214. Suppl. p. 165. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14. Murr. p. 252. Ait. Kew. V. 3. p. 489.
ORELIA grandiflora. Aubl. Guian. p. 271. t. 106.
This beautiful stove plant (a native of Cayenne and Guiana, where it is said to grow by the sides of rivers) was introduced to this country in 1785, by Baron Hake[3]; it has since flowered in many of our collections, usually in June and July.
Stem or trunk shrubby, upright, climbing to a considerable height; bark of the old wood pale brown, of the young wood green and smooth; leaves generally growing four together, sometimes only two, and those opposite, sessile, smooth and glossy above, paler green beneath, the midrib on the underside evidently villous, veiny, veins as in Plumeria, terminating before they reach the margin, chewed discovering little taste; flowers very large, produced even on young plants, of a fine yellow colour, and somewhat spicy smell, not terminal, but growing from the sides of the branches, sometimes singly, more frequently three or four together, standing on short footstalks; calyx composed of five leaves, lanceolate, smooth, unequal, short compared with the flower; corolla mono-petalous, funnel-shaped, tube nearly cylindrical, limb dilated below and bellying out, on the inside striped with orange-coloured veins, above divided into five segments, which roll over each other before they open, when Open broad, somewhat truncated, one side rounded, the other terminating in a short point; at the base Of the divisions the yellow colour on the inside of the flower becomes nearly white, forming so many spots; the mouth of the tube is perfectly closed with villi converging to a point, and which serve as a covering or species of thatch to five long, pointed, rigid, arrow-shaped antherÆ beneath them, which sit on the top of so many ridges, projecting from the inside of the tube, and which just beneath the antherÆ are villous; germen nearly round, with a slight ridge on each side of it, surrounded at its base by a greenish glandular substance; style filiform, the length of the tube of the corolla, enlarging as it comes near to the stigma; stigma divisible into three distinct parts, the lowermost of a yellowish hue, in the form of a rim turning downwards, the middle of a dark green colour, secreting honey in considerable quantity; the summit, which perhaps is the true stigma, a short conical point, rising from the centre of the middle part, bifid at top with a furrow running down each side of it; seed-vessels according to the figure in Aublet, are very large and prickly.
Of this genus, which has a considerable affinity with that of Vinca and Plumeria, only one species is described in LinnÆus's works, and this is usually increased by cuttings.
