tion are awaited with impatience by botanists no less than 
horticulturists. ae 
The Royal Gardens are indebted to Dr. Balfour for 
tubers, which he liberally presented to that institution in 
April, and which flowered in December, a season when 
such a plant is doubly welcome to the cultivator, as the 
similar Begonias of the Andes, which make so magnificent 
a show in the conservatory during the summer and autumn 
months, are then all long past flowering. It is easily 
propagated by its tubers, and as the Kew plants continued 
in flower for two months in a warm conservatory, it will, 
doubtless, prove a great favourite. 
Descr. Erect, stout and succulent, sparingly branched, 
six to ten inches high, sparsely hairy all over the stem and 
leaves. Leaves orbicular, peltate, four to seven inches in 
diameter, centre with a funnel-shaped depression, margin 
recurved and crenate. Flowers monoecious, bright rose- 
pink, one female and several males on the same inflorescence. 
Male flewer four inches in diameter; perianth-segments 
four, obovate. Stamens in a small globose head, filaments 
very short; anthers clavate, recurved, tip rounded. Female 
flower rather smaller than the male; perianth-segments six, 
oblong, obtuse. Styles very short, stigmas horse-shoe 
shaped, arms not twisted, united by a pappillose belt. 
ery three-angled, one angle winged; placentas entire. 
—J. LD. H. 
Fig. 1, ovary ; 2, the same cut open transversely :—doth enlarged. 
