9 
ERYTHRINA Bidwilli. 
Mr. Bidwill’s Erythrina. 
GARDEN HYBRID. 
« This plant was sent me at Spofforth, by Mr. Bidwill, 
from Sydney. I am not sure whether it was raised by him- 
self, or by Mr. Macleay. It is a hybrid production, from E. 
herbacea, impregnated by E. Cristagalli, and is remarkable 
as being, I believe, the only certain hybrid papilionaceous 
plant we have. It isa very beautiful plant of intermediate 
habits. Its vigorous shoots die down to the root after 
flowering, and have leaves of an intermediate form approach- 
ing in colour and gloss rather to those of the Carolina E. her- 
bacea. The flowers are of intermediate size and colour; but 
like those of E. Cristagalli, borne by threes at the axils of 
the leaves as well as on a terminal spike, while those of E. 
herbacea are borne on a leafless spike proceeding from the 
root. 1 hope to multiply it by cuttings, and consider it to be 
a great acquisition. The figure necessarily gives a very in- 
adequate representation of an inflorescence too large for the 
plate; and the terminal spike and upper part of the shoot 
had failed, from an accidental circumstance, in the specimen 
sent, W. H.” 
For the foregoing memorandum, we are indebted to the 
kindness of the Hon. and Very Rev. the Dean of Man- 
chester; and we cannot do better than fill a vacant space 
with the following extract, from a most valuable paper on 
hybrids, which the same gentleman has published in the 
Journal of the Horticultural Society, Vol. 2, Part 1 :— 
« [t is now forty years since I began experiments on this 
subject, which have been, not an employment, but an occa- 
sional source of amusement. My original assertion was, 
that the genera of plants (rectifying in the limitations and 
definitions thereof by botanists such things as shall appear to 
require rectification) represent the several created types of 
