Cussonia
(named after Peter Cusson, 1727-1785, Jesuit and physician, a Professor of Botany in the University of Montpelier; his writings were principally on umbelliferous plants). ORD. Araliaceae. A genus containing about a dozen species of greenhouse evergreen shrubs, natives of Eastern tropical and Southern Africa and the Mascarene Islands. Flowers greenish. Leaves glabrous, petiolate, palmate, with five to nine one-nerved, entire or lobed leaflets. Trunks thick, rather succulent. For culture, see Argyreia. C. spicata (spiked). fl. spirally disposed along the rachis of the spike in five or six series. l. palmate; leaflets petiolate, variously and acutely cut, often trifid at the apex. h. 6ft. to 10ft. Cape of Good Hope, 1789. C. thyrsiflora (thyrse-flowered). fl. racemose, pedicellate along the rachis. l. palmate; leaflets sessile, cuneiform, obtuse, truncate, tridentate. h. 6ft. to 12ft. Cape of Good Hope, 1795.