360 



NOTICES OF NEW OR RARE PLANTS. 



Fig. 48. — The Rose-coloured Weigela. 



graceful bunches from the axils of the 

 leaves and the ends of the branches. 

 Every one saw and admired the beautiful 

 Weigela. I immediately marked it as one 

 of the finest plants of northern China, and 

 determined to send plants of it home in 

 every ship, until I should hear of its safe 

 arrival. 



" It forms a neat bush, not unlike a Sy- 

 ringa (PhiladelpJu/s) in habit, deciduous in 

 winter, and flowering in the months of April 

 and May. One great recommendation to 

 it is, that it is a plant of the easiest culti- 

 vation. Cuttings strike readily any time 

 during the winter and spring months, with 

 ordinary attention, and the plant itself 

 grows well in any common garden soil. It 

 should be grown in this country, as it is in 

 China, not tied up in that formal, unnatural 

 way in which we frequently see plants 

 brought to our exhibitions, but a main stem 

 or two chosen for leaders, which, in their 

 turn, throw out branches from their sides, 

 and then, when the plant comes into bloom, 

 the branches, which are loaded with beau- 



tiful flowers, hang down in graceful and 

 natural festoons."* 



DiELYTRA si'ECTABiLis. S/iowy Fumitory. 

 This plant is, beyond all comparison, the 

 handsomest of the natural order Fume- 

 worts. It does not appear to have been in- 

 troduced into England in a living state, 

 until Mr. FoKTUNE brought it home from 

 China. 



When well-grown, its stems are 1^ foot 

 high, and have three or four axillary ra- 

 cemes of beautiful flowers, each raceme 

 being from 4 to 6 inches long. The flowers 

 are full an inch long, and nearly | wide, 

 with two saccate petals, of a delicate rose 

 colour, and the intervening ones white, 

 with a purple tip. 



This is one of the plants of which the 

 Chinese Mandarins are so passionately fond, 

 and which they cultivate with so much 

 pride in their little fairy-like gardens. Its 

 Chinese name is Hon-pak-Moutan-wha, or 

 " red and white Flower of Moutan." The 

 Chinese botanists do not draw the cha- 

 racters of their genera from the flowers 

 like ourselves, but from the habit of the 

 plant. In this the leaves are disposed like 

 those of the Tree Pa^ony, {P. Mouta?i) and 

 the colours of the flowers are red and 

 white. The Dielytraspectabilis, more near- 

 ly resembles, in growth and culture, the 

 well-known herbaceous plant, D.formosa, 

 than any other species, but is a much more 

 beautiful ornament to the flower garden. 



As Mr. Fortune informs us that this 

 charming plant grows as far north as the 

 frontiers of Siberia, there can be no doubt 

 that it will prove perfectly hardy in North 

 America. 



Campanula nobilis. The Nolle Cam- 

 panula. Judging from the plate of this 



* We trust that these tliree free-growing and very orna- 

 inem;il Chinese shubs, the Forsythia, Viburnum and Weigela, 

 will soon be propagated and offered for sale by our leading 

 nurserymen. V\' e observe that they are now to be had of 

 the London commercial gardeners, at three shillings sterling 

 each. — Ed. 



