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Cowania plicata D. Don

Modern name

Purshia plicata (D.Don) Henr.

Synonyms

C. purpurea Zucc.

A stiff, much-branched evergreen up to 6 ft high with peeling bark; young shoots reddish, very glandular, covered at first with white appressed wool which soon falls off. Leaves 13 to 1 in. long, oblong or obovate with a tapering base, but deeply and pinnately five- to nine-lobed, covered with stalked glands; veins sunken above, prominent below; upper surface dark green, lower surface white with wool; margins decurved. Flowers solitary, very shortly stalked, terminal on short, leafy twigs, 1 to 112 in. across, the rounded obovate petals rich rose; sepals glandular, reflexed; anthers yellow, the feathered styles shorter than in C. stansburiana. Bot. Mag., t. 8889-90.

Native of N. Mexico, first described and figured in Sweet’s British Flower Garden in 1838 (vol. vii, t. 400). The plant depicted had been raised in a garden at Stamford Hill, where it blossomed in June 1837. It is a handsomer shrub than C. stansburiana and considering its great beauty and interest it would seem to be worth while to secure a consignment of seeds. It should succeed at the foot of a sunny wall grown in loam mixed with rubble of lime or mortar. It grows wild in limestone districts.


Genus

Cowania

Other species in the genus