284 NEW PLANTS, ETC, 



21. Campanula Vidalii. Watson, in Hooker, Ic. Plant., vol. 

 vii. t. 684. Moore and Ayres, Gardener s Magazine of 

 Botany, vol. i. 



Raised from seeds received from Mr. W. P. Ayres, in 

 February, 1851. 



This species was first made known through Sir William 

 Hooker's Icones, by Mr. Hewitt Watson, to whom it was given 

 by Captain Vidal, R.N., whose name it bears. It was found on 

 " an insulated rock off the east coast of Flores, between Santa 

 Cruz and Ponta Delgada." Seeds were received some time since 

 from Mr. Ayres, w ho was indebted for them to Mr. P. Wallace. 



The plant has a fine handsome deep green shining succulent 

 foliage, and forms a very good-looking decumbent shrub. Some 

 of the shoots are merely terminated by long rosettes of leaves, 

 others throw up an erect graceful, flowering stem, with a shiny 

 surface, and a warm greenish-brown colour, terminated by several 

 large white nodding flowers, each about H inch long, and shining 

 as if glazed. The colour is however bad, a tint of dull purple 

 or even pale cinnamon giving them a dirty appearance. 



It is a half-hardy or greenhouse shrub, growing best in a mix- 

 ture of sandy loam and leaf-mould, increasing freely by seeds, but 

 not flowering before the second season from seed. It blossoms 

 in August, and is a good object for rock-work in a climate which 

 suits it ; but, being tender, its value is much diminished, inde- 

 pendently of the dingy colour of its flowers. 



This plant has so little the appearance of an ordinary Campa- 

 nula that it is a question whether it truly belongs to the genus. 

 It would rather seem to be related to Musschia, the old Campa- 

 nula aurea, though by no means to be associated with it. The 

 ovary is 3-celled, witli a great rugged double placenta expanding 

 in each cavity, and around the flat head of the ovary, inside the 

 corolla, there runs a broad yellow fleshy ring-like disk ; but 

 neither in this nor in any other circumstance, except habit, does 

 there appear to be real ground for generic separation. 



22. ViNC'EToxicuM purpurascens. Morren and Decaisne, in 

 the Bull. Acad. Brux. 1836, p. 17. 



Received from Dr. Siebold, in August, 1850, under the 

 name of Cynanchum purpurascens. 



Stems and all the green parts slightly downy ; when in flower 

 becoming weaker, with a tendency to twine. Leaves narrow, 

 oblong, mucronate, becoming smaller near the ends of the shoots 

 where the flowers appear. Flowers dull purple, on slender pedi- 



