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The Domination of Nature New Edition William Leiss Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
The Domination of Nature New Edition William Leiss Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
The Domination of Nature New Edition William Leiss Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF
William Leiss
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THE DOMINATION
OF NATURE
New Edition
This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 11.5/13 Times New Roman.
PART ONE
In Pursuit of an Idea: Historical Perspectives
1 The Cunning of Unreason 3
2 Mythical, Religious, and Philosophical Roots 25
3 Francis Bacon 45
4 The Seventeenth Century and After 73
PART TWO
Science, Technology, and the Domination of Nature
5 Science and Domination 101
6 Science and Nature 125
7 Technology and Domination 145
8 The Liberation of Nature? 167
Appendix—Technological Rationality:
Marcuse and His Critics 199
Notes and References 213
List of Works Cited 223
Index 233
4. One recurring question about the scope of the issue is whether the concept
of domination over nature includes human nature. In other words, is
the concept self-reflexive? Is human nature an eternally unchanging
phenomenon, whereas the rest of nature changes unceasingly, as is evident?
More particularly, does a sense that it is legitimate for human power to
change the extra-human environment in fundamental ways include a
program to tinker with the intra-human biological basis of the human
mind? For a good discussion of these themes see Andrew Biro, “Human
Nature, Non-human Nature, and Needs,” in The Oxford Handbook of
Environmental Political Theory, edited by T. Gabrielson, C. Hall, J.M.
Meyer, and D. Schlosberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
5. The Latin root of the word “domination” is dominus, meaning lord
or master, with the connotation of absolute authority. “Dominion,”
however, has much broader connotations. It is derived from the Middle
Latin dominionem and the Latin dominium and domus, with meanings of
property, ownership, home, and household, as well as subordinate state
or nation (as in the former foreign dominions of the British Empire such
as Canada), rule, and power.
7. Ibid., 3.
8. Ibid., 4; italics in original.
see it. For example, I will have to develop at least one criterion
here, in the form of a simple measure for which we have
reasonably good data—namely, human population growth on
the planet.9 Some current estimates put the human numbers
at around the following levels: 8000 bce, 5 million; 3000 ce (Bronze
Age), 14 million; 1000 bce, 50 million; 1 ce, 250 million; 1000 ce,
275 million; 1500 ce, 500 million; and finally reaching 1 billion
in 1800 ce. (The population stands at 7.7 billion today, showing
the huge acceleration in the rate of growth.)10
In simplistic terms, humans as a distinct species occupy
large areas of the globe which were formerly the exclusive
domain of “wild” terrestrial animals and, of course, they also
make use of its plant and animal resources for themselves and
their domesticated animals. So the criterion for domination
being developed here has a specific referent, calling attention
to the displacement of wild animals by humans since the
emergence of the species Homo sapiens in Africa between
300,000 and 250,000 years ago.11 One can then pick, some-
what arbitrarily, a period at which such displacement became
so overwhelming for wild nature that it could reasonably be
said that thereafter humans were beginning to dominate the
most relevant “more-than-human” part of nature, that is, other
terrestrial animals. Perhaps, given the size of the planet’s land
9. There must be other criteria that are relevant for Krause’s concept of
environmental domination, since that concept refers to the totality
of “more-than-human nature.” I am not in a position to speculate on
what those criteria might be. My own choice of a key criterion (human
population growth) is based on the relation between humans and other
living creatures.
10. United States, Bureau of the Census, “Historical Estimates of World
Population,” last revised 16 December 2021, https://www.census.gov/
data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-
worldpop.html.
11. Bernard Wood, “Evolution: Origin(s) of Modern Humans.” Current
Biology 27 (2017): R767–69, https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=
S0960-9822%2817%2930789-3.
mass (leaving aside the oceans for now), one might say that
this date is 1800 ce.
The year 1800 marks, of course, the beginning of what we
know as the Industrial Revolution in Europe. And, I suggest,
environmental domination per se applies only to the period of
industrialism in modern history, on account of the huge dimen-
sions in its impacts on the previously-extent natural order. And
yet, when we focus only or even primarily on the intra-human
consequences of domination, as Krause does, are we not com-
pelled to acknowledge that this has been a period of
intermittent but steady progress in social relations? For it is
precisely during this period that some of the most important
aspects of the domination by some humans over others
(despotism, bitter poverty and exploitation of the underclass,
patriarchy, near-constant warfare) have been powerfully
challenged—by thinkers such as Marx and Marcuse, by social
democracy, feminism, and other movements—and partially
mitigated, admittedly with very different scales of success
around the world.
And so, returning to the citation from Krause at the begin-
ning of this section, I suggest that the practices mentioned in
b(i) antedate the achievement of any human domination over
nature. As to b(ii), it is hard to understand how today’s “priv-
ileged people” are “confined and exploited” by practices
associated with the human domination over nature: What
credible evidence is there to support such a claim? Thus I will
sum up by arguing here that the ways in which people “are
themselves dominated” are entirely independent of the human
domination over nature and, strictly speaking, are not relevant
to what I have called eco-dominion.12
12. On pages 11–12 of her article Krause reviews my 1972 book, The
Domination of Nature (New York: Braziller), and recapitulates my views
on this matter there which I later revised (see chapter 6 in William Leiss,
Under Technology’s Thumb [Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 1990]; Helen Denham, “The Cunning of Unreason and
14. Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis,” Science
155 (1967): 1203–07; see also D.T. Williams, “Fill the earth and subdue
it,” Scriptura 44 (1993): 51–65.
15. St Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica. First Part, Question 96,
“The Mastership belonging to Man in the State of Innocence,” I:486ff.
(Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1981), http://www.newadvent.org/
summa/1096.htm; D.T. Asselin, “The Notion of Dominion in Genesis
1–3,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 16 (1954): 277–94.
16. John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, mi: Christian
Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.), chap. 1, http://btsfreeccm.org/pluginfile.
php/22760/mod_resource/content/6/Commentary%20Genesis.pdf.
17. Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis, vol. 1 (Minneapolis, mn: Lutherans
in All Lands, 1904), section 16, published online 7 February 2015, https://
www.gutenberg.org/files/48193/48193-h/48193-h.htm#sect16.
references are to fish and birds, that is, wild species; so both
domesticated and wild animal species are included without
exception. But is it likely that, for example, the right of use
could be considered to be unlimited? Would it extend as far
as the right to render various species of wild animals extinct?
This does not appear to be a plausible possibility within
Christian dogma. If this limitation were to be acknowledged,
then, it would follow that habitation sufficient to support the
continued viability of wild animal species known in Biblical
times must be preserved; in practice this could mean that
humans ought to ensure that large areas of the globe would be
set aside for this purpose. And since it is relentless human
population growth that most directly threatens the availability
of sufficient habitat for maintaining the viability of established
populations of wild animals, this rule has implications for the
self-imposition of population limits by humankind.
The second limitation has to do with the intensity of use.
Overfishing and excessive despoliation of waterborne mam-
mals such as whales clearly drive the right of use to the point
of absurdity or self-cancellation. Third, there is the matter of
the conditions of use. Something like factory farming would
appear, again, to drive the argument about the legitimacy
of use to the breaking point. Since all domesticated
animals descend from forebears which were once wild, it
seems reasonable to insist that we use these animals (pigs,
chickens, cattle, goats, sheep, horses, mules, and others)
in their natural state, i.e., as free-ranging creatures, with
sheltering as needed during nighttime or inclement weather
and to discourage redators.
It was Francis Bacon who, writing in the early seventeenth
century, appropriated this tradition of religious thought and
turned it towards a different cause. For a long time Bacon has
been justly celebrated as a champion for a new conception of
scientific inquiry that would eventually bring into being the
modern sciences of nature. He represented the essence of a new
25. The term “Anthropocene” has not yet received “official” status as a
descriptor of a distinct geological age in the planet’s history.
26. M.S. Mancini, “Stocks and Flows of Natural Capital: Implications for
Ecological Footprint,” Ecological Indicators 77 (2017): 123–28, https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.01.033.
28. Vaclav Smil, “Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact,” Population
and Development Review 37, no. 4 (2011): 613–36, https://doi.org/10.
1111/j.1728-4457.2011.00450.x; Vaclav Smil, Harvesting the Biosphere
(Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 2012). An earlier estimate is found in P.
Vitousek et al., “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems,” Science 227
(1997): 494–99. A different type of calculation is made in John R.
Schramski, David K. Gattie, and James H. Brown, “Human Domination
of the Biosphere: Rapid Discharge of the Earth-Space Battery Foretells the
Future of Humankind,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
112, no. 31 (2015): 9511–17, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1508353112.
29. Matthew G. Burgess and Steven D. Gaines, “The Scale of Life and Its
Lessons for Humanity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
115, no. 25 (2018): 6328–30, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807019115;
citing Yinon M. Bar-On et al., “The Biomass Distribution on Earth”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 25 (2018): 6506–
11 and “Supplementary Information Appendix,” https://doi.org/10.1073/
pnas.1711842115.
species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than
the background rate.”30
There is a stunning paradox here. From one perspective
eco-dominion as defined by the religious tradition—the enti-
tlement to rule over living things—appears to have been wildly
successful. From another, we appear to be so thoroughly
damaging the Holocene earth-system that has sustained our
existence as a species for more than 10,000 years as to call
our own future into question. The warnings from scientists in
this regard extend across a broad set of causative factors, as
listed above, but they are starkest in terms of climate change,
including sea-level rise of 10 metres or more by 2,100 if
the current trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions is
not altered.31
On this point Krause has commented: “It is worth empha-
sizing, as Leiss points out, that the domination of nature is not
equivalent to full control over it. There is much in nature that
we do not control, including many of our own environmental
effects, as climate change and superbugs and mass extinctions
demonstrate. But domination has never been a matter of
perfect control, and it is rarely seamless.”32 This is potentially
misleading with respect to the specific examples chosen. The
five major earlier mass extinctions preceded the appearance
30. G. Ceballos et al., “Biological Annihilation via the Ongoing Sixth Mass
Extinction Signaled by Vertebrate Population Losses and Declines,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114 (10 July 2017):
E6089–96, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704949114; Jurriaan M. De Vos
et al., “Estimating the Normal Background Rate of Species Extinction,”
Conservation Biology 29, no. 2 (26 August 2014): 452–62, https://doi.
org/10.1111/cobi.12380.
31. Will Steffen et al., “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 33 (14 August
2018): 8252–59 and “Appendix: Supporting Information: Holocene
Variability and Anthropocene Rates of Change,” https://doi.org/10.1073/
pnas.1810141115.
32. Krause, “Environmental Domination,” 13.
33. “Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and
long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing
the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people
36. C.C. Gardner et al., “Maximizing the Intersection of Human Health and
the Health of the Environment with Regard to the Amount and Type
of Protein Produced and Consumed in the United States,” Nutrition
Reviews 77, no. 4 (2019): 197–215; Michael Clark and David Tilman,
“Comparative Analysis of Environmental Impacts of Agricultural
Production Systems, Agricultural Input Efficiency, and Food Choice,”
Environmental Research Letters 12 (2017): 064016, https://iopscience.
iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6cd5/meta.
37. Paul W. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 309–10.
38. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). See also Will Kymlicka
and Sue Donaldson, “Animals and the Frontiers of Citizenship,” Oxford
Journal of Legal Studies 34, no. 2 (2014): 201–19, https://doi.org/10.1093/
ojls/gqu001; William A. Edmundson, “Do Animals Need Citizenship?,”
International Journal of Constitutional Law 13, no. 3 (2015): 749–65.
39. See the famous 2010 text by Christopher Stone, Should Trees Have
Standing? Law, Morality, and the Environment (Oxford, Oxford University
Press). Krause writes: “A state that is committed to non-domination of
both people and the Earth will include a regime of animal and Earth rights
alongside its regime of human rights” (“Environmental Domination,”
16). For just one recent example see E.L. O’Donnell and J. Talbot-
Jones, “Creating Legal Rights for Rivers: Lessons from Australia, New
Zealand, and India,” Ecology and Society 23, no.1 (2018): 7, https://doi.
org/10.5751/ES-09854-230107.
40. There are many important concepts and arguments relating to this theme
in Donaldson and Kymlicka, Zoopolis. In chapter 6, “Wild Animal
Sovereignty,” for example: “Thus, recognition of wild animal sovereignty
would bring a halt to the human destruction of wild animal habitat” (205).
Postscript
What key characteristics of the idea of the domination of
nature help us to grasp the most urgent requirements of an
environmentally grounded ethical stance? Ironically, modern
science, often seen as an instrument of domination over nature,
can provide some much-needed guidance in this matter.
Two examples have been offered in the foregoing pages: first,
climate change, and second, the concept of biomass.
The Industrial Revolution, conventionally dated from 1750
and spurred on by modern science and technology, in broad
41. Many zoos seek to preserve the frozen genetic material of endangered
animal species (T.L. Roth and W.F. Swanson, “From Petri Dishes to
Politics – a Multi-pronged Approach is Essential for Saving Endangered
Species,” Nature Communications 9 [2018]: 2588, https://doi.org/10.1038/
s41467-018-04962-7). Norway maintains the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
in a remote northern location.
42. G.S. Cumming and G.D. Peterson, “Unifying Research on Social-
Ecological Resilience and Collapse,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution
32 (2017): 695–713.
44. I have sought to give an imaginative account of how these values might
be actualized in the future in my book, The Priesthood of Science.
SOPHORA CAPENSIS.
Vetch-leaved Sophora.
CLASS X. ORDER I.
DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Ten Chives. One Pointal.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx. Perianthium monophyllum, breve, campanulatum, basi superne
gibbum; ore quinque-dentato, obliquo, obtuso.
Corolla papillionacea, pentapetala.
Vexillum oblongum, sensim latius, rectum, lateribus reflexis.
Alæ duæ, oblongæ, basi appendiculatæ, longitudine vexilli.
Carina dipetala; petalis alis conformibus, marginibus inferioribus
approximatis, navicularibus.
Stamina. Filamenta decem, distincta, parallela, subulata, longitudine
corollæ, intra carina recondita. Antheræ minimæ, assurgentes.
Pistillum. Germen oblongum, teres. Stylus magnitudine et situ
staminum. Stigma obtusum.
Pericarpium. Legumen longissimum, tenue, uniloculare, ad semina
nodosum.
Semina plurima, subrotunda.
Empalement. Cup one-leaf, short, bell-shaped, hunched at the base on the
upper side; mouth five-toothed, oblique, obtuse.
Blossom butterfly-shaped, five petalled.
Standard oblong, gradually wider, straight, reflexed at the sides.
Wings two, oblong, appendicled at the base, the length of the standard.
Keel two petalled with the petals conformable to the wings, the lower
margins approaching and boat-shaped.
Chives. Ten threads, distinct, parallel, and shaped, the length of, the
blossom, within the keel. Tips very small, turned upwards.
Pointal. Seed-bud oblong, cylindrical. Shaft the size and situation of the
chives. Summit blunt.
Seed-vessel. Pod very long, slender, one-celled, knobbed at the seeds.
Seeds many, roundish.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Sophora foliis pinnatis; foliolis lanceolatis, mucronatis, subtus
tomentosis; caule fruticoso.
Sophora with winged leaves; leaflets lance-shaped, pointed, downy
beneath; stem shrubby.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Cup.
2. The Standard, or upper Petal.
3. One side Petal, or Wing of the Blossom.
4. One of the Petals of the Keel.
5. The Chives and Pointal, natural size.
6. One of the Chives, magnified.
7. The Pointal, natural size.
This is a plant of considerable size at the Cape of Good Hope, so much so, as
to be looked upon there rather as a tree, than shrub. It was first sent to
England, in the year 1773, by Mr. F. Masson; is a hardy green-house plant;
thrives in a mixture of loam and peat, and flowers in August, or September.
There is no method, yet discovered, to propagate it in this country; but, as
seeds are so common of this plant, near Cape town, there is scarce a parcel
arrives, from thence, which does not contain some of them.
Among the new modern vagaries in botany, this genus has been thought,
by the French botanists, (those admirable perplexers of natural order,) to be
better divided in two, as some of the species happen to have the joints of the
pods a little more swelled than others. How so trifling a variation, and that in
a part of the plant which is known to vary, in almost every genus, through
most of the species, where they are numerous; should have been deemed of
sufficient moment to alter the names of so many established plants, and
those determined by such authority as Linnæus, we are at a loss to
determine; and are equally astonished that Willdenow should have followed
them. The new genus is termed Podalyria, and to which, this plant is
attached in the new system.
PLATE CCCXLVIII.
SCHOTIA SPECIOSA.
Lentiscus leaved Schotia.
CLASS X. ORDER I.
DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Ten Chives. One Pointal.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx. Perianthium monophyllum, coloratum; tubus turbinatus,
subcompressus, carnosus; persistens; limbus semiquinquefidus; laciniis
ovatis, concavis, obtusis, erectis, æqualibus.
Corolla. Petala quinque, tubo calycis imposita, oblonga, concava,
obtusa, erecta, æqualia, lateribus mutuò incumbentia, sessilia, laciniis
calycinis duplo longiora.
Stamina. Filamenta decem, subulata, erecta, petalis paulo longiora, tubo
calycis in orbem inserta. Antheræ oblongæ, incumbentes.
Pistillum. Germen oblongum, compressum, pedicellatum. Stylus
filiformis, longitudine staminum. Stigma simplex, obtusum.
Pericarpium. Legumen pedicellatum.
Semina bina, ossea, subovata, magna.
Empalement. Cup one leaf, coloured; tube top-shaped, rather flattened,
fleshy; permanent; border half five-cleft; segments egg-shaped, concave,
blunt, upright, equal.
Blossom. Five petals, placed on the tube of the cup, oblong, concave,
blunt, upright, equal, lying over each other at the sides, sitting, twice as long
as the segments of the cup.
Chives. Ten threads, awl-shaped, upright, a little longer than the petals,
inserted in a ring into the tube of the cup. Tips oblong, laying on the threads.
Pointal. Seed-bud oblong; flattened, with a foot-stalk. Shaft thread-
shaped, the length of the chives. Summit simple, blunt.
Seed-vessel. A pod with a foot-stalk.
Seeds two, bony, a little egg-shaped, large.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Schotia foliis pinnatis; foliolis ovatis, mucronatis; floribus cymosis,
profundé carneis.
Schotia with winged leaves; leaflets egg-shaped, terminating in a point;
flowers in tufts and of a deep flesh colour.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A Flower cut and spread open, shewn from the outside.
2. The same, shewn from the inside.
3. A Flower, with the petals, and border of the Cup removed, to shew the
insertion of the Chives into the tube of the Cup.
4. The Seed-bud, Shaft and Summit, with the tube of the Cup cut in
halves.
Our present subject stood formerly attached to the genus Guaiacum,
under the title of G. affrum, and has been long cultivated in Britain and
Holland, perhaps more than a century. Professor Jacquin, in his Collectanea
ad Bot. &c. Vol. I. p. 93, thought fit to constitute it a new genus, naming it
after his companion R. van der Schot. About the same time, the year 1786, a
monograph on this plant was published at Manheim, by Fred. Casim.
Medikus, under the name of Theodora Speciosa; but Jacquin’s title has
universally obtained. To preserve this plant in good health, it should be kept
in the coolest part of the hot-house, or in a dry stove, the warmth of a
common green-house being insufficient to preserve its foliage through the
winter months. It is a native of all that extent of the African coast from
Senegal river, to the Cape of Good Hope, where it grows to the height of
twenty feet and upwards. The seeds, which are frequently imported, keep
many years in a vegetative state, and is, almost, the only method by which it
can be propagated; for little success can be hoped, either from layers, or
cuttings. It flowers from October till December, delighting in a light sandy
loam. Perhaps, no plant which has been as long in cultivation with us, has so
seldom been seen to flower; for, although the plants in the Kew gardens and
elsewhere, are of a considerable size, yet have we few instances of its
flowering, no mention being made of its time of inflorescence in the
catalogue of that collection.
From a plant, still in flower, this present December 1803, which was
literally covered with blossoms above two feet from its top, our drawing was
taken; it is in the valuable and extensive collection of Isaac Swainson, Esq.
Twickenham; which for scientific arrangement and richness in hardy shrubs
and herbaceous plants, in particular, yields to no private or public collection
we know of; and which, the extreme urbanity of the liberal proprietor, is at
all times open, to every botanist or collector.
PLATE CCCXLIX.
PROTEA DECUMBENS.
Slender-stemed Protea.
CLASS IV. ORDER I.
TETRANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Four Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
Corolla 4-fida seu 4-petala. Antheræ lineares, insertæ petalis infra
apicem.
Calyx proprius nullus. Semina solitaria.
Blossom 4-cleft or 4-petalled. Tips linear, inserted into the petals below
the point.
Cup, proper, none. Seeds solitary.
See Protea formosa, Pl. XVII. Vol. I.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Protea foliis bi-pinnatis, filiformibus; capitulis terminalibus, sessilibus;
floribus incarnatis, bracteolatis; caule tenue, decumbente.
Protea with doubly winged leaves, thread-shaped; small heads of flowers
sitting close on the ends of the branches; flowers flesh-coloured with small
floral leaves; stem slender and bending downwards.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A Leaf.
2. One of the Floral Leaves, magnified.
3. A Floret, complete.
4. One of the Petals, with its Chive at the point, magnified.
5. The Pointal, with the Summit detached and magnified.
From the great number of new species of the divided leaved Proteas, we are
led to conjecture, that they are as numerous as those with entire leaves. The
P. decumbens, from the different specimens we have seen, appears to branch
into many varieties; some with hairy leaves and stems, some with very close
thick set leaves, and some, with both stems and leaves, quite smooth. They
are all, nevertheless, very slender stemed; and, there is little doubt but, in
their natural state, they rest on the ground; although in the fashion we train
them here, they have the appearance of being erect. This species is found at a
considerable distance from the Cape Town, on the summits of dry sandy
hills; wherefore, it must be kept in the most airy part of the green-house, and
watered but seldom. The stem does not grow more than eighteen inches
long, and frequently flowers, as was the case in the present instance, when
not more than twelve. It is propagated, readily, from cuttings made in the
month of May, if treated in the method already directed for the increase of
these plants. The earth in which it should be planted is, a light sandy bright
loam. Our drawing was taken in the month of July, 1802, from a plant in the
Hibbertian Collection, to which it was introduced by Mr. Niven, in the year
1800.
PLATE CCCL.
L A C H E N A L I A P U S T U L ATA .
Rough-leaved Lachenalia.
CLASS VI. ORDER I.
HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Six Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
Corolla sexpetala, infera; petalis tribus infera; petalis tribus interioribus
longioribus. Stamina erecta. Capsula sub-ovata, trialata. Semina globosa.
Blossom 6-petals, beneath; the three inner petals the longest. Chives
erect. Capsule nearly egg-shaped, three-winged. Seeds globular.
See Lachenalia pendula, Pl. XLI. Vol. I.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Lachenalia foliis geminis, lanceolato-linearibus, dense facie pustulatis;
scapo reclinato; floribus sub-campanulatis, albo-virentibus.
Lachenalia with leaves in pairs, linearly-lance-shaped, thickly covered
with pustules on the face; stem bent downwards; flowers rather bell-shaped,
of a whitish green.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. A Flower.
2. The same, cut open, with the Chives in their place.
3. The Pointal.
The drawing, from which our figure of this species of Lachenalia was taken,
was made from a plant communicated by Isaac Swainson, Esq. from his
Botanic Gardens, Twickenham, Middlesex; where it is still in flower, this
present month of January, 1804; and where we believe it is only to be met
with at present in this kingdom. It is one of the largest growing plants of the
genus, the leaves when in a soil it approves attaining the length of eighteen
inches, or more. It is as hardy as any of the tribe, very fragrant, easily
preserved, increasing freely by the root, and flowering with certainty when
the bulb has become of a sufficient size. It grows best in a mixture of light
loam and peat, about two-thirds loam, and one of peat.
PLATE CCCLI.
P U LT E N Æ A R U B I Æ F O L I A .
Madder-leaved Pultenæa.
CLASS X. ORDER I.
DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Ten Chives. One Pointal.
ESSENTIAL GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx quinque-dentatus, utrinque appendiculatus. Corolla papillionacea,
alis vexillo brevioribus. Legumen uniloculare, dispermum.
Cup five-toothed, with an appendage on each side. Blossom butterfly-
shaped, with the wings shorter than the standard. Pod of one cell with two
seeds.
See Pultenæa daphnoides, Pl. XCVIII. Vol. II.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Pultenæa foliis ternis, verticillatis, lanceolatis, serratis, rigidis; floribus
capitatis, cæruleo-purpureis.
Pultenæa with leaves growing by threes in whorls, lance-shaped, sawed
and harsh; flowers grow in heads, and of a bluish purple.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The Cup.
2. The Standard.
3. One of the Wings.
4. The two Petals of the Keel.
5. The Chives and Pointal.
6. The same, magnified.
7. The Pointal.
8. A ripe Seed-pod, open.
9. One of the Seeds, of its natural size when ripe.
Here we find another hiatus to fill up, or pass over; either a new genus is to
be formed for this plant, or we must not boggle at trifles, and skip over one
of the essential characters of Dr. Smith’s Pultenæas, the appendicles or props
at the side of the cup, which are wanting in this plant, though agreeing in
every other. We have, however, until the Doctor shall think fit to regulate
these new, numerous and intricate genera and species from New Holland,
made no scruple to add this plant, as another species, to the genus Pultenæa.
It is a low growing bushy shrub, seldom attaining more than a foot in height;
is very apt to be destroyed by damp in winter, and is not to be propagated but
by seeds, which, however, it perfects in this country. The blossoms begin to
appear in May, and continue in succession through the summer months of
June, July, and August. It should be kept warm and dry in winter, growing
with most luxuriance in light sandy peat earth, and flowering the second year
from the seed. This plant was first raised in 1792, by Messrs. Lee and
Kennedy, at their nursery, Hammersmith, where our drawing was taken.
PLATE CCCLII.
H E L O N I A S B U L L ATA .
Spear-leaved Helonias.
CLASS VI. ORDER III.
HEXANDRIA TRIGYNIA. Six Chives. One Pointal.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx nullus.
Corolla. Petala sex, oblonga, æqualia, decidua.
Stamina. Filamenta sex, subulata, corolla paulo longiora. Antheræ
incumbentes.
Pistillum. Germen subrotundum, trigonum. Styli tres, breves, reflexi.
Stigmata obtusa.
Pericarpium. Capsula subrotunda, trilocularis.
Semina numerosa, angulata, minima.
Empalement, none.
Blossom. Six petals, oblong, equal, deciduous.
Chives. Six threads, awl-shaped, a little longer than the blossom. Tips
lying on the threads.
Pointal. Seed-bud roundish, three-sided. Shafts three, short and reflexed.
Summits obtuse.
Seed-vessel. Capsule roundish, three-celled.
Seeds numerous, angulated, very small.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER.
Helonias foliis lanceolatis, nervosis; bracteis cordato-lanceolatis.
Helonias with lance-shaped, nerved leaves; floral leaves between lance
and heart-shaped.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. Flower, complete.
2. The Chives and Pointal, natural size.
3. The same, magnified.
All the species of this genus, yet discovered, are natives of North America,
and are considered as hardy herbaceous plants; the winters of this country
not being too severe for them; although they are found as far south as
Carolina, yet they are more plentiful in Pennsylvania, about Philadelphia.
They flourish most in a shady, moist situation; and increase, freely, by
parting the roots in the month of March. The flowers are produced in May,
the flower-stem increasing in length, till the flowers are entirely decayed.
The Helonias bullata has been an inhabitant of our gardens ever since the
year 1758, when it was introduced by Mr. Ph. Miller, and cultivated by him
at Chelsea. See Mill. ic. 181. t. 272.
Our drawing was made at the Nursery, Hammersmith, in June 1801.
PLATE CCCLIII.
A S PA L AT H U S C R A S S I F O L I U S .
Thick-leaved Aspalathus.
CLASS XVII. ORDER IV.
DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA. Threads in two sets. Ten Chives.
GENERIC CHARACTER.
Calyx. Perianthium monophyllum, semiquinquefidum; laciniis
acuminatis, æqualibus, superiore longiore.
Corolla papillionacea.
Vexillum compressum, adscendens, obovatum, externe sæpius hirsutum,
obtusum cum acumine.
Alæ lunulatæ, obtusæ, patulæ, vexillo breviores.
Carina bifida, alis conformis.
Stamina. Filamenta decem, connata in vaginam, superne dehiscentem
longitudinaliter, adscendentia. Antheræ oblongæ.
Pistillum. Germen ovatum. Stylus simplex, adscendens. Stigma acutum.
Pericarpium. Legumen ovatum, muticum.
Semina sæpius duo, reniformia.
Obs. Singulare huic sunt folia ex eadem gemma plura in planta
frutescente.
Empalement. Cup one leaf, half-five-cleft; segments tapered, equal, the
upper one longer.
Blossom butterfly-shape.
Standard compressed, ascending, inversely egg-shaped, often hairy on the
outside, obtuse with a point.
Wings half-moon-shaped, obtuse, spreading, shorter than the standard.
Keel two-cleft, like the wing.
Chives. Ten threads, united into a sheath, gaping longitudinally at top,
ascending. Tips oblong.
Pointal. Seed-bud egg-shaped. Shaft simple, ascending. Summit pointed.