GLEANINGS AND ORIGINAL MEMORANDA. 
Ill 
brown and minutely dotted. Flowers smaller than our common Whit 
Water-Lily, the size of N. stellata. Calyx of four sepals, pale yellow- 
green, and the numerous white or whitish petals are lanceolate and 
very acute, not gradually passing into stamens, though the outer 
stamens are more petaloid than the inner ones. Stigma in our plant 
with eleven incurved obtuse yellow rays. This Water-Lily, being a 
native of Western Africa, requires to be grown in a warm stove. It is 
remarkable from the circumstance of its producing a viviparous bud 
at the sinus of the leaf on the upper surface, which bud ultimately 
becomes a separate plant. — Bot. Mag., t. 4535. 
191. COCCOLOBA MA 
sfc 
A 
im 
and straight spikes of crimson flowers. Belongs to the Buck- 
wheat Order (Polygonacea) . Native of South America? 
Introduced by the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. (rig. 91.) 
One of the most striking plants which has flowered in the great 
stove of the Royal Gardens during the year 1850, is that here repre- 
sented, of which plants were long since received from Paris, under the 
-if n<wnlnhn. mn/>YtYn}i<iil].n nf Desfontaines. The name is far from 
name 
appropriate, for the leaves yield greatly in size to the C. pubescent, the 
latter being three or four times the size of the present. Our plant, 
however, equals the pubescens in height (our largest plant being twenty- 
three feet high) : it tapers gracefully upwards, is leafy all the way 
up, and terminated at the top by a dense compact thick club-shaped 
raceme of flowers, of which the rachis, pedicels, and flowers are of the 
richest scarlet. This raceme continued in great beauty for two months, 
and when looked down upon from the gallery above, backed as it was 
by dark-green foliage, it presented a beautiful object. The drawing 
was made in July. A plant, with simple or scarcely divided, furrowed 
erect stems, twenty to thirty feet high ; leafy from below to the top. 
Leaves alternate, distant, dark green, a foot or more long, horizontally 
spreading, cordate-ovate, half-stem-clasping, sessile, acute or acumi- 
nate, strongly nerved, wrinkled and reticulated, rather blistered. 
Raceme terminal, subsessile, erect, two or more feet long, the flowers 
so numerous and dense that they appear to form a compact cylindrical 
spike ; every part of a rich scarlet colour, save the stigmas, which are 
yellow. Tube of the calyx funnel-shaped ; limb cut into 4—6 rounded 
concave lobes. Stamens 8 
12, monadelphous below 
Fruit 
Ovary tri- 
red. The 
They 
and 
quetrous, red. Styles 3. Stigmas capitate. 
genera Coccoloba, Triplaris, and Podoptera are the tropical representa- 
tives of the Order Polygonacece, and may be viewed as examples ot 
the genera Rheum, Rumex, and Polygonum, taking the form of trees 
or shrubs. They are natives of the West Indies^ and tropical America 
and often attain a considerable height, 
generally have large entire coriaceous leave 
bear spikes or racemes of flowers, succeeded by 
bunches of berry-like fruit, which, as many of the 
species inhabit the shores, have given rise to the 
English name, « sea-side grapes." The present spe- 
cies appears to be a tall-growing tree : our plant is 
now ten (Qu. twenty-three : see the early part of 
this paragraph) feet high, and with its broad stiff 
leaves and long erect spike of red flowers, has a 
very striking appearance. It requires to be kept 
in the stove, grows freely in light loam, and may be 
increased by cuttings treated in the usual way for 
tropical plants of like nature. — Bot Mag., t. 4536. 
