The Botanical Magazine/Volume 5/147

by William Curtis

[ 147 ]



Dais Cotinifolia. Cotinus-leav'd Dais.

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Class and Order.

Decandria Monogynia.

Generic Character.

Involucrum 4-phyllum. Cor. 4 s. 5-fida. Bacca 1-sperma.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

DAIS cotinifolia floribus quinquefidis decandris. Linn. Syst.
     Vegetab. ed. 14.Murr. p. 403. Spec. Pl. p. 556.

DAIS laurifolia. Jacq. ic. collect. 1. p. 46.

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The Dais cotinifolia is an ornamental Green-house Shrub, of
the deciduous kind, and though it appears from the Hortus
Kewensis to have been introduced by Mr. James Gordon, of
Mile-End, in 1776, is yet a great rarity with us, and only to
be found in some of the first collections.

Its scarcity, and consequent very high price, is attributed
to the Nursery-men's not having yet discovered the means of
propagating it freely.

Messrs. Grimwood and Co. of Kensington, have some
very fine plants of it, which flower every year in the months of
June and July, but as yet have produced no perfect seeds,
which they may be expected to do when grown older; such
having been known to ripen them in Holland.

It is a native of the Cape, and appears to have been long
possessed by the Dutch, as its Generic Character taken from
D. V. Royen, is printed in the Genera Plantarum of Linn-
æus in 1764.

There are only two known species, and they vary in the
number of their Stamina, and divisions of the Corolla.