Erica Grandiflora

The Erica here figured, is one of the many new and beautiful species, which within these few years have been sent from the Cape by Mr. Masson, and which have contributed so greatly to enrich the royal garden at Kew.The description given of the grandiflora in the Suppl. Plant. accords so ill with our plant, that we should be led to consider it as another species, did not the respectable authority of the Hortus Kewensis silence all doubts on that head.The blossoms of this species, whether we regard their magnitude, their colour, their smooth and glossy surface, or the regular position of the filaments, projecting beyond the corolla, and closing together by the anther?, excite our notice, and claim our admiration.Like every other heath, the hardy ones excepted, it is a greenhouse plant, and flowers from May to July.Our drawing was made from a plant finely blown, in the collection of James Vere, Esq. Kensington Gore.