without killing the plant by drought, is the standing crux 
of all establishments. B. variegata is an exceedingly 
common plant throughout India, but more often seen planted 
than indigenous; it forms a small tree, six to twenty 
feet high, and when covered with blossoms, which appear 
in March, it resembles a gigantic Pelargonium, and is 
indeed a glorious object. The bark is astringent and 
employed for dyeing and tanning, the leaves and flower- 
buds are used as a vegetable, and the latter are often 
pickled. The flowers vary greatly in colour, from white 
variegated with yellowish green, to rose variegated with 
crimson, cream-colour and purple. The specimen here 
figured flowered in the Royal Gardens in March of last 
year. 
Descr. A small tree; branchlets slender, glabrous, 
except the tips, which with the peduncles and buds are 
grey with a fine pubescence. Leaves three to four inches 
Jong and broad, orbicular, bifid, nine- to eleven-nerved, lobes 
rounded, sinus acute with a mucro; petiole one to two 
inches long, slender. Flowers in short racemes, four inches 
in diameter, calyx spathaceous, tube as long as the limb. 
Petals clawed, obovate-oblong, obtuse, delicately veined, 
rose-coloured, the lower more cuneate, streaked’ with 
crimson. Stamens five, three longer than the others, erect. 
Ovary slender, hairy, stipes and style slender. Pod one to 
two feet long, by three-quarters to one and a quarter broad, 
flat, curved, stipitate, acute or acuminate, septate within. 
Seeds broadly oblong, much compressed.—J. D. H. 
Fig. 1, Calyx, stamens and pistil; 2 and 3, anthers; 4, pods; 5, portion of 
valve of ditto and seed :—all but figs. 4 and 5 enlarged, 
