AUGUST 27, 1861. 659 



siderable change, and had become a mass of interlacing stems, 

 tilling a glass shade a couple of feet high and nearly as much 

 across. The species has a running or creeping rhizome, which is 

 slender, and branches freely, bearing a profusion of fronds of a 

 bright green colour and delicate herbaceous texture. Many of the 

 fronds are short, furnished with obliquely ovate, scarcely stalked, 

 crenated pinnae, about half an inch long, articulated with the 

 winged rachis, and produced for the most part on one side of this 

 rachis. This was the condition in which it was formerly shown. 

 Now, however, some of the fronds are much larger and broader, 

 the pinnae oblong, obtuse, or more or less attenuated, and an 

 inch and a half or more in length. No fructification has yet 

 been produced, so that its name and position cannot be satis- 

 factorily determined, though it is probably acrostichoid, and 

 an undescribed species of Polybotrya, which may be called 

 Polybotrya Lowii. It is, at any rate, a very elegant plant for the 

 fern house, and was awarded a First-Class Oebtifjcate. 



Pentstemon lobbianus: — from Messrs. Low & Co. This 

 formed a branching subshrubby bush, somewhat myrtle-like in 

 aspect, and a foot and a half or more in height, clothed with neat, 

 opposite, elliptic, shining green leaves, and bearing numerous 

 bright yellow flowers. It was stated to be perfectly hardy, and on 

 this account, as well as from its distinct and pleasing character, it 

 was thought worthy a First-Class Certificate. The flowers 

 were remarkably short-tubed, with a broad open throat, an upper 

 lip of two combined arching segments, and a wide lower lip of 

 three broadish bluntly ovate segments. The plant was collected 

 on the Sierra Nevada, in California, by Mr. W. Lobb, and was 

 by him sent to Messrs. Low. 



■ PoUia purpurea;— from Mr. W. Bull, F.E.H.S., Chelsea, 

 and also from Messrs. Low & Co. This was Commended as a 

 desirable dwarf, or small-growing bronzy-purple leaved stove 

 herb, of free growth, adapted for those who have not convenience 

 to grow such plants as the more valuable and beautiful Alocasui 

 metallica. It had dwarf hairy stems eight inches to a foot 

 high, clothed with broadly lance-shaped leaves, six or eight 

 inches long, glossy on the upper surface, and of a deep bronzy - 

 purple there, the under side being stained of a more decided 

 red-purple. It was evidently a free-growing, and from its glossy 

 surface a clean-looking plant, suitable for intermixing with others 

 having ornamental foliage. The species has been introduced 

 from Java. 



