DIELTTRA BPECTABILI8. 



nearly all smnincr. It can also be very easily increased by takinp^ up the plants 

 and dividing the roots in spring, before it commences to grow. "We feel confident 

 that it will make an excellent window or parlor plant. A large plant put into a 

 pot or box in October, and kept dry the early part of winter in a cool room, where 

 the temporaturo will be about 40°, or just above freezing, and then brought into a 

 temperate heatitbout the middle of February or 1st of Marcli, will in a short time 

 be a beautiful object. The annexed wood-cut is given to illustrate in some degree 

 its habit of growth. We remember seeing in an English journal an account of a 

 plant that measured upwards of thirty feet in circumference and five feet high, with 

 upwards of two liundred perfect spikes of blossoms at once. The shoots are succu- 

 lent, almost transparent, and attain the height of two to three feet. The leaves are 

 somewhat like those of the Preony in form, and the flowers are produced on the 

 young shoots in bending racemes, each having from ten to twenty flowers. These 

 are a brilliant rose color, and in form resemble somewhat a small fancy work bag. 

 The corolla consists of four petals ; the two large ones, forming the most showy part 

 of the flower, are compressed and turned backwards at the point, and the two small 

 ones, which project below the others, adhere to each other, and cover the stamens. 

 These latter are whitish. On close examination, the flowers are no less curious and 

 wonderful than they are beautiful. 



Mr. Fortune described it as one of the most popular plants in China, cultivated 

 ■with a passionate fondness by the Chinese mandarins among their rarest and most 

 beautiful plants, and that figures of it in bloom embellish some of their finest china- 

 ware. The Chinese name is " Honrj-'pak-Montan-wha^'' or flower of the Montan red 

 and white. They give it this name on account of the foliage resembling that of the 

 Montan Pceony, and the flowers being red and white. 



It belongs to the natural order Fumariacre — Fumeworts of Lindley's " Vegetable 

 Kingdom'''' — and, as a French writer truly says, is the queen of them all. It has 

 bec-n variously called Diceuira, Dielyira, and Diclytra. In England and in this 

 country it is now almost universally written Dielytra. The French have it Dicentra, 

 on the ground that this is the oldest name and the most significant, as it is composed 

 of two Greek words having reference to the peculiar form of the two large petals. 

 The Germans usually write it Diclytra ; and Prof. Berkley, who is good English 

 authority, seems to consider this correct. In a note which appeared in the Gardener's 

 Chronicle in July, 1853, he said the vexed question as to the comparative claims of 

 these names is solved beyond a doubt on reference to the original paper in which the 

 genus was proposed. In " Horner^s Archiv. fur die Botanik,^'' (PiOmer's Botanical 

 Records), 1797, Borckhausen, in a paper on the genus Fumaria, proposes Dicly- 

 tra for Fumaria cucullaria of Linnaeus, resting its character on the peculiar struc- 

 ture of the corolla and the six distinct stamens. If this be the fact, then Diclytra 

 should have the preference, according to the laws of scientific nomenclature. 



