no difficulty other than those experienced in connection 
with the very varied garden Petunias which are now 
generally raised from seed. As long ago as 1866 
Mr. Naudin pointed out that neither P. integrifolia nor 
P. nyctaginiflora vary when raised from their own seed, 
but that when intercrossed they yield hybrids as fertile 
as themselves ; these hybrids being all alike in the first 
generation, but in the second varying in the most 
remarkable degree. Modern Petunias owe more to the 
skill and attention of Mr. E. Benary of Erfurt than to 
any other cultivator. Mr. Benary separates his forms 
into several groups and claims that some thirty per cent. 
of his forms come true from seed. The plants are treated 
as tender annuals and are largely grown for summer 
bedding ; the seeds are germinated in spring in heat and 
the seedlings planted out of doorsin May. The plants 
may also be grown in pots for conservatory decoration. 
A light soil and abundance of summer heat and direct 
sunshine are essential to their freedom of growth and 
flower. In Mr. Benary’s experience the best Petunias are 
not those that show most vigour in the seedling stage. For 
this reason he has always made it his practice to discard 
the strongest seedlings when pricking them out from the 
seed pan. 
Description.—Herdb or undershrub, diffusely branched, glandular pubescent 
in nearly all its parts; branches slender, terete, prostrate, decumbent or 
occasionally ascending. Leaves alternate, short petioled, usually elliptic- 
lanceolate or lanceolate, quite entire, acute, base cuneate, including the petiole 
1-3 in. long, blade often 13-2 in. long, 2-13 in. wide. Bracts opposite, like 
the leaves but somewhat smaller. Flowers pseudo-axillary, solitary, peduncled ; 
peduncles slender, 3-2! in. (usually 1}-13 in.) long, at first ascending, after 
flowering more or less deflexed. Calyx 3-1} in. long, slightly aecrescent, 
subequally 5-partite; segments spathulate-linear or ligulate, subacute, 4-1} 
in. long, 75-3 in. wide. Corolla at first bright rose-purple, becoming at length 
paler, outside pale rose-purple with the tube outside suffused with purple and 
marked with deeper purple lines; tube abouti1 in. long, ventricose above the 
narrow base, towards the top nearly } in. across ; limb slightly 2-lipped and 
shortly 5-lobed ; lobes 2-8 in. wide, rounded. Stamens 5, included, the four 
longer didynamous with their anthers connivent in pairs, the fifth distinctly 
smaller; filaments glabrous. Ovary ovoid, barely 1 in. long, glabrous, 
surrounded at the base by a narrow disk ; style glabrous, hardly as long as the 
longest pair of stamens; stigma discoid-capitate. Capsule ovoid, apiculate, 
about } in. long and } in. wide. 
Tas. 8749.—Fig. 1, calyx and pistil; 2, lower portion of corolla-tube laid 
open, showing the stamens; 3 and 4, stamens; 5, ovary and disk :—all 
enlarged, 
