A'ZURITE, a term used by Phillips to denote Lazulite, under which name this mineral is most generally described by mineralogists. [LazotrrE.] It is different from Azure-Stone, by which name Lapis Lazuli, the Ultramarine of painters, is sometimes known.
lIABIA'NA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Iridarem It derives its singular name from Babianer, which the Dntch colonists call these plants, because their round subterranean stems are greedily eaten by baboons. It differs from Gladiolus in its round leather-coated seeds, and in the flowers having the tube of I.ria„ and from Ilia in their having the irregular limb of Gladiolus. Fourteen or fifteen species are known, among which are some of the handsomest of the Cape Bulbous Plants, as they are commonly though incorrectly called. Of these all have narrow, plaited, sword-shaped loaves, rising from is cormua which is covered with rigid, netted, brown scales ; this part, which is sometimes called the bulb, some times the root, but which is in reality a short underground stein, is propagated by one or more young buds near its point, which shoot up at the season of growth, feed upon the old cor•mus till they have sucked it quite dry, and by that time become new cormi themselves elevated upon the point of the original one In this way the underground corral gradually rise towards the surface of the earth, and afford an instance of vegetable progression which by some has been adduced as extremely remarkable, but which is in fact, if the phenomenon be rightly considered, precisely analogous to tho progression of the stem of a tree into the air by the formation of fresh branches year after year.
The flowers of Bahian are yellow, purple. and even scarlot, of considerable size, and extremely handsome. They are produced in perfection, provided the plants are so cultivated as to be exposed abundantly to air, light, warmth, and moisture, when in a state of growth, and preserved cool and dry while in n state of repose. It is in the plains of the Capo of Good Hope that these plants are found, whore they are exposed for two or three months, at the most, to rain ; and where, during the remainder of the year, they are buried beneath a soil so dry that even succulent plants themselves can scarcely con trive to exist upon it.
Babiona sulphurea, one of the commonest species, grows about a foot. high, with oblong, plaited, hairy leaves, and is one-sided spike of A, a diminished figure of the ; II, one of the connt, abowtos how they gradually ascend by rising annually upon tho remains of corral of former years.
four or five flowers. The latter are about two inches long, of a pale sulphur-yellow, with a short sky-blue tube and eye ; the segments are oblong, slightly wavy, nearly equal In size, and spreading nearly equally round three short erect stamens. The style and stigma are sky-blue ; the latter very narrow and channeled.