THE 



June, 1864. 



CENTRADENIA EOSEA. 



ENTRADENTA ROSEA is a plant of graceful 



habit, with curious copper coloured leaves and rosy- 

 •^ white flowers, which blooms iu the stove at all 

 ^ seasons, but is most prized for conservatory deco- 

 ration in the late autumn and early spring months. 

 It is a stove evergreen shrub of small growth, 

 which, like many other useful subjects usually 

 ( ^^~^ ^-> ^V grown in the stove, may, with proper care, be 

 J) V^^ajjPy-' made amenable to warm greenhouse treatment ; 

 and it is therefore the better adapted to be 

 applied to the various decorative purposes for 

 which plants are required in the collections of amateurs. If there 

 are qualities in some plants which give them precedence in the 

 favour of lady cultivators, Ceutradenia rosea may be pronounced as 

 decidedly a lady's plant, and one of the most desirable objects to place 

 on a pedestal, or iu a conspicuous place apart from the general collec- 

 tion of plants on stages, as its distinctness of colouring and graceful 

 outlines are seen to the fullest advantage only when it is isolated and 

 placed as nearly as possible on a level with the eye. Centradenia 

 belongs to the first suborder and first subtribe of the great natural 

 family of Melastomacece, having for its associates in the division of the 

 order to which it belongs, Lavoisiera, Brachycentrum, Bcrtolonia, 

 Sonerila, Sphcerogyne, and other genera of stove plants which are 

 held in high estimation. All the Melastomads have a regular 

 corolla of four or five divisions, the petals being inserted at 

 the base of the lobes of the calyx, and the stamens inserted with the 

 petals in two ranks usually differing in form and size. It is a family 

 especially rich in plants with grand foliage ; in the first section we have, 

 besides Centradenia and other genera just mentioned, the magnificent 

 Sphcerogynelatifolia, and in the fourth section Gijanopliyllummagnijicum, 

 the two most magnificent in respect of foliage of all known stove plants. 



VOL. VII. — SO. VI. G 



