418 HORTUS MORTOLENSIS 
spontaneous in many places on this coast. The flowers, which are 
of an exquisite blue, are produced in great quantity from spring 
to summer, and often continue till late in the autumn, but they 
seldom produce seeds. We received it from Prof. Charles Naudin 
in April, 1877. 
, PHASEOLUS. 
P. Caracalla has very interesting flowers. It succeeds quite 
well on the Italian Lakes, but here it has never lived long, although 
it has been tried repeatedly. 
PHILLYREA. 
Prof. Fiori, in Fiori and Paoletti, Flora analitica d’Itaha, has 
united the three Italian species into one, which of course may be 
justified by their great variability. With us, however, P. angusti- 
folia, which is common on the rocks near the sea, is a very 
distinct plant, and I have never seen intermediate forms running 
into P. media. Our plant of P. latifolia came from the Royal 
Botanic Garden of Munich (October, 1909), where it was originally 
introduced by Dr. H. Ross from Sicily. P. Vilmorimiana is a 
more showy plant, but seems rather less adapted to our soil and 
climate. 
PHENIX. 
The common Date Palm (P. dactylifera) is abundantly planted 
near Bordighera, where it has been in cultivation since the six- 
teenth century for the production of palm leaves for Catholic and 
Jewish ritual service.* There are several big old specimens in the 
garden, all planted by Sir Thomas Hanbury, with the exception 
of the one west of the house. The latter is a sucker from an old 
plant, which was already on this spot, when Sir Thomas Hanbury 
ee the property, but was blown down in a gale a few years 
ater. 
The dates produced on the Riviera are of little value, but 
better results might certainly be obtained if offshoots of good and 
early kinds were introduced. There is a form grown in Nice as 
P. melanocarpa Sauvaigo, which is said to produce good dates, 
and so does one known as P. macrocarpa in Mr. Winter’s 
establishment at Bordighera. 
The Pheniz being dicecious are therefore disposed to hybri- 
dize; the plants grown from seeds collected in gardens are often 
of hybrid origin. The species catalogued as P. acaulis Hort. is 
probably a hybrid between P. pumila Hort. and P. reclinata. 
P. macrocarpa originated in the Canary Islands, and is said to be 
a hybrid between P. canariensis and P. dactylifera. P. hybrida 
Hort. and P. Riviert are hybrids of P. canariensis too. P. pumila 
Hort., most likely another hybrid, is a plant with a short stem 
and short leaves, with the petioles invariably yellow and the 
* See Strasburger, Rambles on the Riviera. 
+ Emile Sauvaigo, ‘‘ Les Phenix cultivés dans les Jardins de Nice. Le 
Phenix melanocarpa de la Villa Henry de Cessole,” in Revue Horticole, 1894, 
pp. 375 and 493. 
————— 
Ts a 
