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BOTANICAL INFOHMATION. 317 



flame of science in the Colony under so mucli discouragement, and with 

 so much disinterestedness, should now receive from the hands of the 

 Colonial Government the fitting acknowledgment of his past labours. 

 He alone should be placed in that situation where he could honour his 

 deceased friend, by carrying out his scientific views, and where he could 

 be of service to his country, by stimulating the youth of the Colony to 

 imitate M. Bojer in that which made him great, a persevering pursuit 

 of science, and a constant desire to improve himself in every kind of 

 knowledge, and, by so improving himself, to be in a condition to raise 

 and ameliorate the position of all around him. • J- M. 



Tlie Soap-Plant of California, 



We 



elongated form, including their coating (and this coating of a remark- 

 ably fibrous character), under the name of Soap-plant: firstly, from 

 China, sent by our excellent friend Sir John Bowring, in 1855 ; and, 

 secondly, in J 856, specimens of a Soap-plant, and these in flower, from 

 California, through Messrs. Veitch, of the Exeter and Chelsea Nurse- 

 ries, sent by their collector, Mr. William Lobb. Happily, by means of 

 these latter we are able to determine the plant, and it is thus seen that 

 the Chinese plant and that of California are one and the same: and it 

 is not a little remarkable, that, though a plant of little or no beauty, 

 originating in a country (viz. California) whence comparatively few 

 plants are yet common in our gardens, and although not yet known to 

 authors as possessing any remarkable properties, I find that no less 

 than four good figures of it can be confidently referred to. 



1. The first in point of date of publication is in 1816, in Bedoutc's 

 * Liliacces,* tab. 564, where it appears under the name of Scilla pomeri- 

 diana, De Cand. (Cat, Monsp. 143). It had flowered in the Jardin 

 des Plantes at Paris, but its native country was unknown to the au- 

 thor. It had been sent to Professor De Candolle by a cultivator at 

 Bordeaux, for FJialaugium bicolor, " qui est toute autre plante." The 

 fibrous coats of the bulb, though di^^cribed, are not here accurately re- 

 presented. * 1-- . 



2, lo 1821 the plant was in the Nurscrj^ of Messw. ColviU, King s 

 Bond, Clielsea, where it flowered in the gr^cuh(>u.i^ and was figured by 



Mr. Gawler in the 



p(mu 



