culture is indebted to Capt. A. A. Dorrien-Smith, who 
informs us that while it usually grows as a creeper and 
prefers to have its roots in the shade, it is in its native 
haunts very accommodating, as it also forms a fairly 
compact rigid shrub in the middle of lava-flows. Its 
usual and apparently natural habit, however, is that of 
a creeper on trunks of trees, when, like various species of 
Ficus, it forms more rigid spreading branches as it grows 
older. It is only on such branches, when they are mature, 
that flowers are borne. The material for our figure has 
been derived from a plant cultivated by Mr. T. A. 
Dorrien-Smith in his garden at Tresco Abbey, Scilly, 
where it has thriven well in a raised pocket against a south 
wall shaded from the midday sun, its roots attaching 
themselves to the stones like ivy. Under these congenial 
conditions it flowered for the first time from the spread- 
ing branches in April, 1914, doing so again, even more 
profusely, in 1915. Itis readily reproduced by cuttings 
struck under a bell glass in autumn, plants so raised 
flowering in their second or third season. It can also be 
raised from seed, but plants so obtained take many years 
to attain mature growth and produce flowers. It should 
be noted that this is not the plant figured as M. diffusa 
at t. 569 of the Icones Plantarum ; that fi t 
M. albiflora, Sol. at figure represents 
DeEscription.—Shrub, far climbing, divaricately 
branched, the twigs terete or faintly 4-angled, puberulous. 
Leaves short-petioled, oblong or elliptic-oblong, obtuse or 
almost so, 3—? in. long, 1-2 in. wide, very coriaceous, 
copiously dotted beneath. Flowers terminal, cymose, 
numerous, very shortly pedicelled. Calyx about } in. 
long, puberulous; tube narrow-oblong; limb abruptly 
spreading, cup-shaped; lobes rounded-deltoid. Petals 
orbicular, sparingly and minutely denticulate, about 
To in. long, pink. Stamens numerous; filaments pink, 
over 3 in. long; anthers oblong, yellow. Style slender, 
over ; in, long. Capsule globose, coriaceous, } in. long, 
grooved, crowned by the persisting calyx-lobes. 
Fig. 1, bud; 2, longitudinal section isti i 
3 2, of a calyx and pistil, showing style; 
3, petal; 4 and 5, anthers; 6, transverse section of pistil all ores J 
