79 GLEANINGS AND ORIGINAL MEMORANDA. 
colour, which is deepened by the greyness of the underside, From amongst this foliage the numerous yellow and 
carmine flowers peep out. The flower itself measures, with the spur, about one and a half inch in length. The calyx 
and spur are brick-red, inclining to carmine and running into pale green, the former at its base, and the latter at its 
point.— Maurer, in Allgem. Gartenzeit., Dec. 13, 1851. 
541. BESCHORNERIA YUCCOIDES. A very fine half-hardy perennial from Mexico. Flowers green, 
among deep red bracts. Belongs to Amaryllids. 
B. Yuccoides; foliis radicalibus is rigidis lato-l I tactu scabris margine 
minutissimé cartilagineo-serrulatis, scapo racemoso subpaniculato, bracteis amplis coloratis maculatis, floribus glabris 
ipolli earibus pedunculatis fasciculatis, — ' 
lat? 0 "m 3d تت‎ | he 
rises gracefully to the height of six or seven feet, with a few lateral branches ; it is smooth, blood-red, obtusely angular, 
0 ow in f: 
two to four each, on pedicels from half an inch to an inch long, from which they very readily disarticulate ; when 
full-grown they are two and a half inches long above the articulation. The ovary is clavate, acutely triangular, three- 
celled, with numerous horizontal ovules in a double line. The sepals and petals are green, distinct, but formed into 
a tube, and nearly alike in form and texture, narrowly oblong, channelled, obtuse, with a thick rib at the back; the 
honey is secreted in abundance from near the base, when the flowers are open ; but they never spread much at the 
The stam 
awl-shaped at first; after a time they acquire a sigmoid form near the base in consequence of not being able to 
extricate themselves from the flower as they lengthen. The anthers are versatile, linear, two-celled, arrow-headed at the 
base, and contain a pale greenish pollen ; the pollen-grains usually adhere in fours, or a smaller number, are smooth, 
spherical, and have a distinctly pitted surface ; placed in water they quickly burst their outer shell, when the inner sac 
ill escape in the form of a free transparent globe. The style is continuous with the free triangular apex of the ovary; 
is slender, three-cornered, and terminates in a papillose three-lobed stigma, from which drops of honey exude some time 
before the flower expands, 
e three genera, Agave, Furcræa, and Beschorneria, are nearly related but satisfactorily distinguished. In Agave 
the filaments are folded down before expansion ; in the other two they are straight. Then Furcræa has short filaments, 
with a great dilated base ; while in Beschorneria the stamens are long, and taper gradually from base to apex. 
The plant before us flowered the other day at Abbotsbury, in the garden of the Honourable W. F. Strangways. 
542. Ibex rEPTACANTHa. A handsome, hardy, evergreen shrub, from the North of China. 
Introduced by Mr. Fortune. 
È leptacantha 1 foliis ovali-oblongis acuminatis breviter petiolatis equaliter spinoso-dentatis dentibus gracilibus. 
That this plant is an Ilex seems to be proved, in the absence of flowers and fruit, by its being readily grafted upon 
the common Holly. It has very handsome foliage ; the leaves being six inches lon by two inches wide, of a very 
iem oval figure, bordered regularly with distant slender spiny teeth, It is a good deal like the Nepal Z. dipyrena, 
u at plant PEA tn ESCAS 4 
"m3 
this plant they are of about the texture of a Portugal Laurel. 
543. MEDINILLA SIEBOLDIANA. Planchon. A beautiful stove shrub, with rose-coloured flowers. 
Belongs to Melastomads. Native of the Eastern Archipelago. Introduced by M. Van Houtte. 
A native, it is said, of the Moluccas, whence it appears to have been introduced to the Belgian gardens by M. Van 
Houtte, and through that channel to our stoves in England. It forms a handsome shrub, with large dark green leaves, 
and drooping racemes, of waxy rose-coloured fi i 
yes, m 
and continues long in blossom. 
branches quite terete ; the branchlets only 
