Curtis's Botanical Magazine/Volume 73/4291
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Tab. 4291.
ANIGOZANTHOS fuliginosa.
Sooty Anigozanthos.
Nat. Ord. Hemodoraceæ.–Hexandria Monogynia.
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tab. 4180.)
Anigozanthos fuliginosa; caule angulato elato superne paniculato, inferne foliisque æquitantibus lineari-acuminatis subfalcatis striatis glaberrimis, spicis paniculatis secundifloris, pedunculis pedicellis parteque inferioris florum pilis plumosis fusco-brunneis fuliginosis, perianthii straminei tomentosi laciniis lanceolato-acuminatis tubum curvatum superantibus, staminum filamentis lacinias æquantibus, antheris apiculatis.
This is one of the few plants, figured in the 'Botanical Magazine', of which no living specimen yet exists in our Gardens. It is here given to show how much it merits cultivation; also because, from its peculiarly dry, or "everlasting" character, it exhibits so much of its beauty in the Herbarium, that we can vouch for the accuracy of the figure, both in form and colour. It is, too, among the rarest of the genus yet found in Australia, and is thus noticed, in conjunction with another species, A. pulcherrima, figured in this work, Tab. 4180, in a letter from Mr. J. Drummond, published in the 'London Journal of Botany', vol. iii. p. 263. "By a ship now about to sail, I send two fine species of Anigozanthos, collected by my son (since killed by the natives), in the vicinity of the Moore River. Of the golden-flowered kind (A. pulcherrima), I gave some account before (vol. i. of Lond. Journ. of Bot. p. 627, 8). The dark-flowering one, of which but two specimens have ever been found in bloom, is a real mourning flower; the upper portions of its stem, and lower portion of the corolla being covered, as it were, with black velvet: the corolla is deeply cleft, and expands about two inches. The species is not allied to any other yet discovered in the Swan
River Settlement." The flower alone, independent of the curious sooty tomentum of the upper part of the plant, is indeed quite sufficient to distinguish this species; being much deeper cleft, with far larger and longer laciniæ, and longer filaments to the stamens than any known species. We do not despair of seeing this plant ere long in our greenhouses.
Descr. Root a creeping caudex, thicker than the finger. Leaves chiefly radical, or from the very base of the stem, and fasciculate, sheathing, equitant, linear-ensiform, acuminate, striated, quite glabrous, shorter than the stem, much tinged with brown-purple. Stem erect, herbaceous, angled and furrowed, two to four feet high, bearing three or four leaves, similar to those of the stem, the uppermost less equitant. This stem branches above, and becomes a panicle, dichotomously divided, with a small leaf-like bractea at the forks, clothed with a dense dark-red brown or sooty, coloured tomentum, which, when seen under a microscope, is found to consist of beautiful plumose hairs. The ultimate branches, or peduncles of the panicle, bear a spike of large, tomentose, lemon-coloured flowers, the lower portion of the flower and the ovary being covered with the same fuliginose tomentum as the panicle, but which gradually becomes more scattered and inconspicuous towards the upper portion of the flower. Ovary globose. Perianth with the tube slightly curved, scarcely an inch long, a little dilated upwards; the mouth very oblique; the limb of six spreading lanceolate acuminate segments (clothed within, as well as without, with pale yellow tomentum), which are much longer, especially the upper ones, than the tube. Filaments subulate, as long as the segments of the perianth, their bases united into a membrane, or ring, at the mouth of the tube. Anthers small, oblong, pale-coloured, tipped with a small blunt mucro. Style longer than the corolla. Stigma clubbed.