Cowania plicata D. Don

A stiff, much-branched evergreen up to 6 ft high with peeling bark; young shoots reddish, very glandular, covered at first with white appressed wool which soon falls off. Leaves 1⁄3 to 1 in. long, oblong or obovate with a tapering base, but deeply and pinnately five- to nine-lobed, covered with stalked glands; veins sunken above, prominent below; upper surface dark green, lower surface white with wool; margins decurved. Flowers solitary, very shortly stalked, terminal on short, leafy twigs, 1 to 11⁄2 in. across, the rounded obovate petals rich rose; sepals glandular, reflexed; anthers yellow, the feathered styles shorter than in C. stansburiana. Bot. Mag., t. 8889–90.

Native of N. Mexico, first described and figured in Sweet’s British Flower Garden in 1838 (vol. vii, t. 400). The plant depicted had been raised in a garden at Stamford Hill, where it blossomed in June 1837. It is a handsomer shrub than C. stansburiana and considering its great beauty and interest it would seem to be worth while to secure a consignment of seeds. It should succeed at the foot of a sunny wall grown in loam mixed with rubble of lime or mortar. It grows wild in limestone districts.