Beaufortia
(commemorative of Mary, Duchess of Beaufort, a botanical patroness). Including Schizopleura. ORD. Myrtace??oe. Elegant free-flowering greenhouse Australian shrubs. Flowers scarlet; calyx with a turbinate tube; stamens in bundles opposite the petals. Leaves sessile, opposite or scattered. Beaufortias require a compost of peat, leaf soil, and loam, lightened, if necessary, by the addition of sand. Cuttings of half-ripened shoots root freely in sandy soil, under a glass, with very little heat. B. decussata (decussate). fl. scarlet; bundles of stamens on very long claws; filaments radiating. May. l. opposite, decussate, ovate, or oval, many-nerved. h. 3ft. to 10ft. New Holland, 1803. (B. M. 1733.) B. purpurea (purple).* fl. purplish-red, in dense globular heads. l. three to five-nerved, erect or spreading, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate-linear. New Holland.
B. sparsa (few-leaved). fl. bright scarlet. l. many-nerved, scattered, ovate-elliptical, obtuse. West Australia. SYN. B. splendens. (P. F. G. xiii., 145.) B. splendens (splendid). Synonymous with B. sparsa.