< 
Court of Directors of the East India Company. It is loaded 
with delicate pale rose-coloured flowers, which are arranged 
along the stem, and when gathered and placed in water in a 
sitting-room, it will continue to expand them for four or five 
weeks successively. 
23. IPOMG@A batatoides. Bentham Pl. Hartweg, p. 46. 
The errors that have been committed about the source of 
the drug called Jalap are not a little remarkable. By one 
writer the drug was asserted to be the roots of the Common 
Marvel of Peru; and then it turned out that Jalap does not 
come from Peru. By another the Convolvulus Jalapa or 
Ipomea macrorhiza of the southern states of the American 
Union was asserted to be its origin; but unfortunately that 
plant happens to have no greater purgative qualities than 
the common Sweet Potatoe. Then it was proved upon the 
authority of Dr. Schiede, and others, that a plant called 
Ipomea, or Exogonium, Purga, was the real origin of the 
drug, for this traveller saw the people of Xalapa collecting it. 
But it was also asserted that other plants of the Convolvula- 
ceous order are gathered; and a Convolvulus orizabensis, 
with hairy stems and calyx, was said to be one of them. It 
now appears that the Mexicans call at least one more species 
“Purga,” adding to it the term Macho or male; for Mr. 
Hartweg has sent home the subject of the present notice, 
which is altogether different from any of the species previously 
noticed as either “‘ Purga” or ‘* Purga Macho.” What makes 
it the more interesting is its extraordinary beauty, which I 
think excels that of any of the species yet in gardens. The 
only plants of it in the country are two in an unhealthy state 
in the garden of the Horticultural Society. They have large 
oblong fleshy tubers, and produce flowers of the richest and 
most brilliant crimson, or rather purple, which it is possible 
to conceive. Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to 
propagate them. 
24. ABIES Khutrow. Royle’s Illustrations, p. 353. t. 84. f. 1. 
In the last number of the Gardener’s Magazine is the 
following passage, concerning this plant. 
«« Abies Smithiana, Wallich, Arb. Brit. p.2317. fig. 2229. 
