214 \5ISCELLANY OF NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



racemes of small white flowers ; if hardy, this may possibly be a good plant for 

 bedding out. It was raised accidentally from seeds which had been deposited 

 among the mould with which Mr. Fortune packed one of his Chinese impor- 

 tations of plants. On the same shelf was Calandrinia umbellata. a beautiful 

 object, either for ornamenting the shelves of our greenhouses, or for planting 

 out in patches on rockwork. The flowers are produced in tolerable abundance, 

 and the colour (a deep 'purple) is the most lovely imaginable. We may here 

 mention a little experiment which has been made on the growth of Cacti in 

 water. On the 11th of June, 1845, a plant of Mammillaria pulchra in a 3 inch 

 pot was placed in a 6-inch pot, which, having the hole at the bottom stopped up, 

 has been kept full of water, and, singular as it may appear, the plant is growing 

 very luxuriantly under this anomalous treatment, although it has been con- 

 stantly kept in the water, from the above date to the present time, and fully 

 exposed to the ever varying temperature of a greenhouse. This being quite 

 the reverse of the treatment such things generally receive, would seem to offer 

 a useful hint to the growers of this interesting tribe, iind it further shows that 

 the nature of Cacti under cultivation is but imperfectly understood. In the 

 range of pits in front of this house was Mr. Fortune's last importation of plants 

 from China. They are all in good condition ; the Pseonies are just beginning 

 to break, the Camellias and Roses also look well, more especially the Camellias, 

 and some Caprifoliaceous plants. In the same range was Achimenes patens, 

 the lovely new species lately received from Mr. Hartweg: with the habit and 

 foliage of A. longiflora, it bears flowers of an exceedingly beautiful violet colour, 

 changing ou the outside of the corolla into a clear bright purple. The tube is 

 extended into a singular blunt spur which projects beyond the calyx. It is, 

 perhaps, the most beautiful of all the species yet introduced, fully realizing 

 the high expectations formed of it. In this pit was also an Arabian production 

 like a Plumeria, with a large fleshy stem swelling out at the base, and with 

 gnarled Ceradia-like branches bare of foliage, except at the ends, where a tuft 

 of tolerably large, shining, dark-green, obtuse ovate leaves surround the flowers. 

 The blossoms themselves are very handsome, something like those of an 

 Echites; the tube being about an inch in length, of a pale yellow outside, 

 spreading out into five delicate pink petals, edged with deep rose. Associated 

 with it was the Naras fruit, a production about which as yet little is known. It 

 was found growing on little knolls of sand by Captain Sir James Alexander, 

 when he visited the country near YValwich Bay, on the south-west coast of 

 Africa, forming bushes 4 or 5 feet in height, without leaves, and with opposite 

 thorns on the light and dark green striped branches. The fruit is stated to 

 have a coriaceous rind, rough with prickles, and to be twice the size of an 

 Orange ; the inside resembling a Melon as to seed and pulp. When ripe it has 

 a sub-acid taste, very agreeable in that hot country ; and without it the natives 

 could not remain near the coast. Inhabiting as it does that excessively dry, 

 hot, and barren region, it was considered that the plants would succeed without 

 water; but this is a mistake; fur it has been found that out of all the plants 

 that germinated from seeds sown in the garden, thuse only which have received 

 plenty of water have survived. Two plants in a pot, receiving a copious supply 

 every morning, with a slight shade and a moist heat of about 80°, are now 

 nearly a foot in height, producing spiny-looking stems, rising from between two 

 cotyledons, exactly like those of a Melon or Cucumber. What the result, how- 

 ever, may turn out to be, it is as yet impossible to foretell. 



Echinocacti and Mammillaria. — I cannot omit noticing, for the information 

 of your readers, an ingenious method of propagating such interesting plants: — 

 Mr. Turner, curator of the Botanic Garden, Bury St. Edmund's, received from 

 South America a rare specimen of Echinocactus, which was decayed at its base, 

 and would not emit fresh rjots : he, therefore, seared it at the top, and cut off the 

 diseased part, which alter being healed in a dry stove, produced several small 

 plants on the summit ; a second species, which was deemed incurable, was cut 

 transversely and placed on a shelf in the succulent-house, and being fixed on a 

 pot of soil, soon made a strong plant. He has also increased, to a considerable 



