320 REPOET ON ANNUALS GROWN AT CHISWICK. 



Lnpinns tricolor elegans .... Vf.itch. 

 An ornamental variety, of branched and spreading habit, the 

 stems finely downy, 2|- feet high, bearing abundantly racemes of 

 moderate size ; the flowers white, with the standard deep lilac 

 changing to pucy-purple. The flowers were very effective, the 

 colours being finely contrasted. 



_ , , _ ( Benary. 



i^ychms Haageana .... [q^^^^^s^co. 



The plants of this handsome hybrid Lychnis did not succeed very 

 well in the open ground, owing to accidental adverse conditions of 

 soil. They were about a foot high, and unbranched, bearing a 

 few flowers opening in succession on the upper part of the stems. 

 The flowers were various in colour, including vivid scarlet, light 

 orange-scarlet, light and dark crimson, dull reddish-crimson, and 

 white ; and their petals had a conspicuous single tooth at the 

 side. In pots of good soil, the plants were taller, and more 

 branched ; and those with bright scarlet flowers were very hand- 

 some. The stems were sometimes dark-coloured, sometimes pale 

 green, according as the plants produced lighter or darker coloured 

 flowers, and they were clothed with reversed hairs ; the leaves 

 were oblong-ovate, acute, downy and ciliated ; the calyces clothed 

 with long cobwebby hairs, and the flowers varying from 2 inches 



An early blooming, white-flowered Virginian i 



A poor-looking annual, with small dark mottled flowers. 



Nycterinia selaginoides Veitch. 



This plant formed dwarf compact tufts, furnished with small 

 narrow or oblong spathulate leaves, which were toothed towards 

 the blunt apex, and clothed like the stem with soft hairs. The 

 flowers grew in flattish terminal corymbs, elongating with age, 

 and were pretty, star-shaped, white or lilac, with a bright orange 

 centre. The calyx was adnate for half its length with the 

 midrib of the leaf or bract in whose axil the flower was placed; 

 the corolla consisted of a very slender tube, f of an inch long, and 

 a spreading five-lobed limb, the lobes obcordate, and deeply two- 

 parted with divergent divisions. The spaces between the bases 

 of the lobes, and between the notches, when seen against the 



