1869.] BEGONIA SEDENI. MONSTEBA DELICI03A. 16!) 



BEGONIA SEDENI. 



WITH AN ILLUSTBATION. 



QJ-jfr'E learn from the Messrs. Veitcli and Sons, of Chelsea, who are the 



*kyi/ fortunate raisers of the subject of our plate, and to whom we are 



V^jV indebted for the opportunity of figuring it, that it was obtained by 



*X<f crossing B. boliviensis with an unnamed species, not yet offered for 



sale. It was raised in 1868, and was exhibited on June 2 of the present year, 



at South Kensington, where it obtained a First-Class Medal and Certificate ; and on 



June 30, at the Eegent's Park, where the highest honours were also awarded to it. 



We believe that this new Begonia will prove one of the most ornamental and 

 valuable of our decorative plants, for not only are its blossoms large, abundant, 

 and highly coloured, but its habit is in every way irreproachable ; and as it 

 thrives well — so we are informed on the best authority — in a temperature of 55° 

 to 60°, which suits B. boliviensis, there can be no difficulty on the score of culti- 

 vation. Our figure will show that we do not exaggerate its beauty. 



Begonia Sedeni is a soft-wooded plant, with erect hairy purplish-red stems. 

 The leaves are obliquely ovate-lanceolate, tapered to a long point, duplicately 

 serrate, of a dull green, with pale-coloured veins, and red hairs which show as a 

 reddish fringe at the edge. The cymes are three-flowered, axillary, on reddish 

 peduncles four inches long, bearing a pair of bluntly-ovate bracts subtending the 

 three pedicels, which are about an inch and a half long. The central or larger 

 flower is male, and has two ovate sepaline divisions an inch long, and two 

 oblong ovate petaline ones an inch and a half long, while in the centre is a tuft of 

 yellow stamens. The two lateral flowers are female, somewhat smaller, with five 

 oblong segments, and three contorted yellow stigmas, surmounting a three-winged 

 ovary, which has one of the wings prolonged. It is most floriferous, the young 

 plants, when only six inches high, developing blossoms freely. M. 



MONSTEBA DELICIOSA. 



'OME readers may remember this under the old name of Philodendron 

 pertusum. "We have grown the plant for its fruit for a great many years, 

 and, as was remarked at the Fruit Committee on the 6th ult., when a ripe 

 fruit was exhibited, no plant could be more easy to cultivate. We have 

 been in the habit of planting a lot out every summer in a sheltered situation, 

 with many other choice plants, and few prove to be more interesting than this, 

 more particularly if a lot of fermenting leaves and short grass be trenched in before 

 planting. This gives the plant more vigour, and tends to assist in developing 

 its magnificent and singular-looking leaves. These, like those of many endogens, 

 spring as it were from the bottom of the previous leaf-stalk, which seems to push 

 out the top of the next leaf, the leaf itself being bent down against the side of the 

 stalk, or something like a flag rolled up. The leaf, under favourable circum- 

 3bd Seeies. — ii. I 



