f 
Tas. 5254: 
| BEGONIA PHYLLOMANIACA, 
Proliferous-stemmed Begonia. 
Nat. Ord. BreGonracka.—Mona@cia PoLYANDRIA. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4172.) 
Beconia phyllomaniaca ; caule elongato subtortuoso erecto carnoso viridi tereti 
crasso patentim parce et patentim piloso molliter subulato-setoso copio- 
sissime prolifero, petiolis longitudine foliorum vel longioribus, foliis semi- 
pedalibus, cordato-ovatis inzequilateris subpeltatis longe acuminatis basi 
precipue varie lobatis, lobis acuminatis margine apiceque molliter spinuloso- 
serratis ciliatisque viridibus, bracteis ovatis acuminatis membranaceis paten- 
tibus fuscis, paniculis corymbosis axillaribus, floribus tetrapetalis, exteriori- 
bus suborbicularibus; masculorum 2 interioribus nanis, femineorum 2 in- 
terioribus exter. eequilongis angustioribus, capsule immature alis omnibus 
ineequalibus, 2 brevibus, unica elongata obtusa. 
Beconta phyllomaniaca, Mart. in Hook. Kew Gard. Miscell. v. 4. p. 206. 
KnesEBECKIA phyllomaniaca. Klotzsch in Walpers Annal. v. 4. p. $90. 
This Begonia has been received from the Berlin Botanic Gar- 
den under the name of B. prolifera,* and, as is too much the 
case with horticulturists, without any authority for the name 
attached to it, or any notice of the country whence it has been 
derived ; and in the present state of the very difficult genus 
Begonia, with the several changes that it has undergone, first 
by the late Dr. Klotzsch, and more recently by M. Alphonse De 
Candolle, it would seem a hopeless task to endeavour to ascer- 
tain if it is anywhere described. Fortunately it possesses a 
character which led to the determination of the species in this 
case, namely, in the whole surface of the stem, and to a certain 
extent the leaf-stalks also, being all quite “Aérissé, or squar- 
rose, and proliferous, so to say, with minute leaves, single or in 
clusters, which are capable of forming new plants, and which ap- 
pear in some cases to burst through the bark of the stem ; at 
other times soft spine-like, green papilla develope themselves into 
* There is a Begonia prolifera of Alphonse De Candolle, in the Ann. des Se. 
Nat. 4th ser. v. 11. p. 135, but that is a stemless and very different plant. 
JUNE Ist, 1861. 
