Dzscr. Plant two feet or more high, much branched, erect : 
the stem and branches four-angled. Leaves opposite, moderately 
large, nearly sessile, ovate, acuminate, attenuate at the base, 
ciliated at the margin, slightly pubescent on the surface, rather 
strongly veined and reticulated. Flowers sessile or very nearly 
so, two together from the axils of the upper leaves, large, very 
showy. Calyx quite without bracts or bracteoles, deeply cut 
into five erect, subulate /odes, much shorter than the funnel- 
shaped curved tube of the corolla: the /imé very large, purple 
blue, veined, the five lobes rotundate, spreading, crenate and 
somewhat waved at the margins. Stamens included. Ovary 
ovate, downy, seated on a large disk. Style as long as the tube 
of the corolla: stigma of two very unequal lobes. Capsule obo- 
vato-clavate, acute, slightly downy, bearing eight or ten lenticular 
seeds. W.J. H. 
Curr. A soft-wooded plant of herbaceous aspect, growing 
from one to two feet high. It is a native of the tem- 
perate climate of Cuenca, in Peru. It is found to succeed 
im a temperature intermediate between that of the stove and 
greenhouse, and grows freely in any kind of light garden 
soil. Like many of the tropical Acanthacee, after flowering it 
soon becomes thin and naked. It propagates freely by cuttings. 
The young plants should be kept in small pots during winter, 
and receive very little water. In the spring they require to 
be shifted into a large pot, where they will soon make rapid pro- 
gress, and produce a succession of large fine blue flowers. //. S. 
Fig. 1. Calyx and pistil. 2. Ovary :—magnified, 
