[Plate 6L] 
THE CHINESE PLATTCODE. 
(PLATYCODON CIIINEN'SE.) 
A haJf-hardy Ilerhaccoiis Plant, from the southern Coast of Ciu^A,lelongtng to the Order o/Bellwouts 
K** 
Specific Cljaractrr* 
T//E CHINESE PLATYCODE.— Glaucous, erect. Leaves 
ovate, finely serrated as far as the point. Flowers race- 
mose. Stigmas 5- Capsule hemispherical. 
PLATYCODON CllINEXSE; glaucum, strictum, fc.liis 
ovatis argute serratis usque ad aplcem, florlbus racomosia, 
stigmatihus 5, capsula hemisphericu. 
Platycodon grandiflorum : Zindki/ in Journal of ITorticidtivral Society, vol i., p. 305, not of Alphonse De Candolle. 
^riiis is the finest herbaceous plant obtained for the Horticultural Society in China by Mr. Fortune ; 
but it requires skilful management to gain the beauty of the specimen represented in the 
accompanying plate, which was prepared in the Cliiswick Garden. It is there cultivated in a pot, 
filled witb peat loam and sand, the first and last in excess, exposed freely during the summer under 
the sliglit shade of a low wall, and in winter kept dry in a cold frame. Thus managed it produces 
fine straight stiff branches from 2 to 3 feet liigh, bearing several large deep blue flowers in succession 
at the end, and ripening seed in some abundance. 
The roots are perennial, fleshy, and connected with a stout neck, where the buds are seated, 
from which the stems are annually produced. The latter arc unbranched, glaucous, with a purplish 
tint, and covered with leaves from the base to the setting on of the flow^ers j every year they drop 
out of the neck (disarticulate) by a clean convex scar, which consequently leaves a concavity or 
socket in the neck, into which water must never be allowed to penetrate. The leaves are firm, 
ovate, nearly sessile, deep green above, glaucous beneath, and edged with purple ; their sides are 
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