Daviesia
(named in honour of the Rev. Hugh Davies, a Welsh botanist). ORD. Leguminosae. A large and elegant genus of greenhouse shrubs or undershrubs, containing fifty-five species, all natives of Australia. Flowers orange-yellow, or red, usually small, in axillary or lateral racemes or pedunculate umbels, occasionally reduced to short clusters, or rarely solitary or terminal; calyx teeth short; petals on a slender claw. Leaves alternate, simple, entire, coriaceous or rigid, either flat and horizontal or vertical, or terete and spinescent; stipules none, or very minute. They require a compost of loam and peat, with a little sand, and delight in an airy situation in the greenhouse. Propagated by cuttings, made of firm young shoots, and placed in sand, under a bell glass; or by seeds, when obtainable, which should be sown in a slight botbed, about March. The two species here given are probably amongst the ones most generally grown.
D. latifolia (broad-leaved). fl. orange-yellow, small, numerous, in racemes of 1in. to 2in., often flowering from near the base; bracts ovate or oblong, densely imbricate before the flowers are full grown; pedicels rarely exceeding the bracts till after flowering. May. l. 2in. to 3in. long, ovate-elliptical or ovate-lanceolate, usually terminating in a callous point. h. 2ft. to 5ft. 1805. A glabrous shrub. (B. M. 1757.) D. umbellulata (small-umbelled). fl., racemes in some specimens shorter than the leaves, in others twice as long, flowering from the middle upwards, or at the end only; calyx about one line long, the teeth short and obtuse; petals twice as long as the calyx. April. l. lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, 1/2in. to 3/4in. long, one-nerved, flat, not reticulate. Branches sulcate. H. 2ft. to 4ft. 1816. A slender, much-branched shrub.