1S73.] JOTTINGS ABOUT SOME OF OUR NEW GRAPES. 241 



TACSONIA INSIGNIS. 



WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 



'PECBfENS of this beautiful novelty, were obligingly sent to us for 

 illustration, some time since, by Mr. E. Anderson, gardener at Sowerby 

 House, Hull, where the plant was raised. The honour of introducing it 

 to this country belongs to Yarborough L. Greame, Esq., by whom seeds 

 were sent to England some few years since, and who in a memorandum communi- 

 cated by Mr. Anderson, writes as follows concerning it :— " I saw the Tacsonia 

 growing in a deep richly-wooded gorge, on the eastern slope of the Cordilleras, 

 between La Paz and Chulumani, in the north of Bolivia. It seemed to like to 

 climb to the end of a long branch, and then hang in festoons, swayed backwards 

 and forwards by the breeze." This description of its manner of growth is, we 

 learn, very accurate, since it supports itself by its tendrils till it begins to flower, 

 and then hangs loose, each branch having as many as a dozen or fourteen flowers 

 open in different stages of development. We believe the plant is to be sent out 

 by Messrs. Backhouse and Son, of York. 



A woodcut figure of this fine and very distinct species was recently given in 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle (1873, p. 1112), where it was fully described by Dr. 

 Masters, who has made a special study of the family of Passionflowers. It is 

 there stated to be remarkable for its large ovate-lanceolate leaves, which are of a 

 shining green colour, rugose orbullate on the upper surface, and covered beneath 

 with rust-coloured down. The stipules are like those of T. pinnatistipula, but 

 more deeply divided ; but the bracts are different, as also are the size and con- 

 struction of the flower, which measures some 6 in. across. The tube is cylindri- 

 cal, with a cuboidal dilatation at the base, and is thickly covered with down. 

 The sepals have unusually long horns, and their colour on the inner surface, as 

 also that of the petals, is a lustrous crimson, the colour, however, changing 

 rapidly after gathering to violet-rose. The mouth of the tube is adorned with a 

 beautiful incurved fringe of short filaments, which are blue mottled with white. 



There can be no doubt that we have here a most charming addition to our 

 cultivated Passionflowers, for the plant is not only a free flowerer, but requires 

 merely the ordinary greenhouse or conservatory treatment. — T. MooRE. 



JOTTINGS ABOUT SOME OF OUR NEW GEAPES. 



(>JBf late years, a very large number of new Grapes has been introduced, and 

 n^ brought prominently under the notice of horticulturists. Some of these 

 f|5|^ varieties possess considerable merit, and consequently have found their 

 "^ way into general cultivation, but none of them to the extent of such old 

 favourites as the Black' Hamburgh or Muscat of Alexandria ; still, they have dis- 

 placed and are displacing many of the old varieties which were in cultivation 

 twenty or thirty years ago, such as West's St. Peter's, Sweetwater, and the Black, 

 Grizzly, and White Frontignans, &c. 



3rd SERIES. — VI. ^^ 



