1369.] ALLAMANDA NOBILIS. 25 



ALLAMANDA NOBILIS. 



WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 



F the species of Allanianda, which rank amongst the most gorgeous of 

 stove-climbers, that which we now figure is certainly one of the finest — 

 the noblest of all those yet known in respect to its individual flowers, and 

 so far as experience has gone, the equal of the very best of its congeners 

 in respect to prolificacy of blossom. It was introduced by Mr. W. Bull, of 

 Chelsea, from the Rio Branco, in Brazil, and flowered for the first time in this 

 country in the autumn of 18G7. The flowers are of a pure bright yellow, rather 

 deeper tinted in the throat, but without streaks or any other markings ; they 

 measure from four to five inches across, and have a decided aromatic magnolia- 

 like perfume ; they are, moreover, of a full circular outline, quite different from that 

 of the other cultivated species, with the exception of A. grandiflora, from which 

 the plant differs in its scandent habit of growth. These features, together with 

 the membranous hairy leaves, the pubescent calyx, and pubescent exterior surface 

 ®i the corolla, and, moreover, the dissimilar shape of the latter, mark it as distinct. 

 Our figure was prepared in July last from a plant which bloomed in the 

 nursery of the Messrs. Glendinning and Sons, of Chiswick. from whom we learn 

 that the plant in question, though it bore no fewer than twelve trusses, each truss 

 showing from ten to sixteen flowers, had only been grafted about four months 

 previous. This one fact is of itself sufficient to indicate its free-flowering qualities, 

 while of its size, form, and beautiful colour, a very accurate estimate may be 

 formed from Mr. Fitch's excellent sketch, limited though it be by the size of 

 our page. M. 



THE NEW PLANTS OF THE PAST SEASON. 



!NNO DOMINI 1868, though it may not be credited with such startling 

 novelties as some of its predecessors have been, will yet occupy no mean 

 position in the annals of Horticulture, in respect either to the number or 

 the quality of the New Plants it has ushered into our gardens. This 

 proposition we shall now endeavour to support by a very brief reference to some 

 of the most remarkable of the plants themselves. 



We first call up the group of hardy trees, shrubs, and woody climbers, and 

 among them we find some choice acquisitions. First and foremost comes a golden 

 Oak, called Quercus Bobur Concordia, which is much more brilliantly coloured 

 than the var. called aurea, previously known, the sinuate leaves being of a rich 

 golden tint ; this novelty has turned up in the Belgian nurseries. A fine contrast 

 to it is supplied by the Acer platanoides rubrum, grown in Bussia and Ger- 

 many, and whose broad pahiratisected leaves are of a deep blood-red colour. The 

 evergreen Betinospora filicoides is a graceful hardy shrub from Japan, remark- 

 able for the fern-like character of its ramifications ; while the Tamaiix plumosa 

 is a deciduous bush, so extremely ramified and feather-like in its spray as to have 

 3ed Series. — n. c 



