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Napoleona (Named after Napoleon)

(named after Napoleon Buonaparte). SYN. Belvisia. ORD. Myrtaceae. A small genus (only two species) of glabrous stove trees, restricted to tropical Africa. Flowers various-coloured, solitary, in the axils of the leaves. Leaves alternate, entire, or obscurely sinuate-toothed, dotted. N. imperialis thrives in a compost of sandy peat and fibry loam. Propagated by cuttings of half-ripened shoots, 2in. to 4in. long, inserted in sand, under a hand glass, in mild bottom heat. The second species is probably not in cultivation. The species described below was discovered, towards the close of the eighteenth century, by Baron Palisot de Beauvois, and the badly-executed figure given by that author in his "Flore d'Oware et de Benin," coupled with the singular structure and colour, caused some botanists for a considerable time to doubt the very existence of the plant. All uncertainty was, however, cleared away in 1843, when Whitfield, a botanical collector, brought with him to this country, from Sierra Leone, dried specimens and living plants of Napoleona; one of the latter flowering, some years later, in the garden of the then Duke of Northumberland.

N. imperialis (imperial). fl. apricot-colour and crimson, assuming a bluish tint when they decay; exterior of corolla large, concave-sub-hemispherical, many-folded and toothed; intermediate corona deeply cleft as far as the base into filiform, spreading laciniae: central portion erect, cyathiform, with a much-cut, inflexed margin. May. l. shortly stalked, ovate-acuminate, dark green. h. 6ft. 1844. (B. M. 4387.)