Inga
(the South American name of one of the species). ORD. Leguminosae. A genus comprising 140 species of stove unarmed shrubs or trees, natives of the warmer parts of South America, principally of Guiana and Brazil. Flowers usually white or yellowish, produced in spikes or nearly globular heads, from the axils of the leaves. Leaves abruptly pinnate, composed of from two to five or six pairs of rather large leaflets. The species, with the exception, perhaps, of I. pulcherrima, are very rarely seen in cultivation. They thrive in a compost of peat and loam, and plenty of moisture will be needed during the summer months, but scarcely any in winter. Increased by cuttings, made of the young shoots, in spring and summer, and inserted in sandy peat, under a bell glass, in heat.
I. macrophylla (large-leaved). fl. yellow. l. bipinnate, of two pairs; leaflets ovate, acute, smooth, shining above, a gland between each pair; petiole winged. h. 20ft. Cumana, 1815. (B. M. 5075.) I. pulcherrima (fairest). fl. scarlet, disposed in solitary, pedunculate, pendulous heads. Summer. l. with four or five pairs of pinnae; each pinna bearing from twenty to twenty-six pairs of small, linear, obtuse, closely imbricated, adpressedly-ciliated leaflets. Branches slender, spreading. h. 10ft. Mexico, 1846. (P. M. B. v. 147.)