Tas. 4841. 
BEGONIA Natatensis. 
Natal Begonia. 
Nat. Ord. Beconrace#.—Mone@cra PoLyaANDRIA. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4172.) 
: BrGon1a Natalensis; tuberosa glabra, caule succulento inferne erasso nodoso 
ramoso, foliis ineequaliter semicordatis acuminatis lobatis hine grosse auri- 
culatis serratis albo-maculatis, pedunculis axillaribus dichotome ramosis, © 
floribus nutantibus, masculis sepalis 2 rhombeo-orbicularibus, foemineis se- 
palis 5 (nunc 4) rhombeo-ovatis, fructu 8-alato alis 2 majoribus subacute 
angulatis unico breviore obtusangulo. 
2 Above 170 species of Begonia are enumerated by Walpers. 
The majority of these having been described from dried speci- 
mens, too often very imperfect ones, it is hard to say whether 
- this is among them or not. It certainly does not accord with 
; any one of the very few that are natives of South Africa, to 
vs which country our plant belongs. It was brought to us by 
' Captain Garden, from Natal; and though possessing no bright 
1 or lively colours, is a desirable inmate of the stove, or of a warm 
greenhouse, from its being so abundant a flowerer, and from 
these flowers being in perfection in the winter months, Novem- 
ber and December. 
Duscr. Root a large depresso-globose tuber, scarcely half 
buried in the ground, and sending out branched fibres, true 
roots, from almost regular distances of the circumference ; this 
tuber is of a greyish-brown colour, quite smooth, and rather 
gradually contracts itself into the thickened base of the stem, 
which is knotted and branched, and the maz stem and branches 
upwards gradually become more and more slender ; but the 
whole is of a very succulent character, of a dirty yellowish- 
green, tinged with copper-colour, jointed and nodose at the 
joints; height from a foot to a foot and a half. Zeaves semicor- 
date and acuminate, resembling the half of a cordate five-lobed 
APRIL Ist, 1855. 
