MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 23 



pretty species, well deserving a place in every greenhouse. Plants of it have 

 been sent to Mr. Thompson and Mr. Knight, King's Road, Chelsea, and Mr. 

 Ingram, Southampton. Mr. Rasleigh has also flowered some other handsome 

 Tropceolums, differing in some particulars from T. tricolorum, and T. elegans. 

 The collection contained some new specimens of Phycella, as well as a very 

 sweet, night-scented, small flower, which is supposed to be Leucocoryne odorata. 



Gardoquia multi flora, Blany flowered. — A very neat and handsome flowering 

 species, requiring a greenhouse temperature. It is a shrubby plant, growing 

 from a foot to half a yard high. It has very much the appearance of a neat 

 plant of the Fuchsias. The flowers are produced in abundance, very similar to 

 the Epacris grandiflora, they are about the same size and form, of a pretty rosy 

 crimson colour. The foliage is fragrant. The plant deserves a place in every 

 greenhouse. It strikes freely, and may soon be had of most nurserymen. 



Sedum Siboldi. — A new species from China, which requires to be grown in 

 the greenhouse. The plant blooms profusely, and its fine scarlet flowers make 

 a very showy appearance. It is propagated easily, and may soon be had fo 

 most of the public nurserymen. 



Eutaxla puiifjens. — Tins is a very neat handsome and abundant blooming 

 species, recently sent from New Holland, and is now spreading in the London 

 Nurseries. It is a shrubby plant, growing from two to three feet high. The 

 flowers are yellow with an orange red centre. The plant deserves a place in 

 every greenhouse. It blooms freely during summer. 



Clerodendrum speciosissimum, Showy flowered. — This fine flowering shrubby 

 plant has very recently been introduced into this country, and is one of the 

 most showy plants for the conservatory or greenhouse. The plant grows to 

 four or five feet high, and produces numerous large spreading panicles of fine 

 rich scarlet flowers. Each blossom is two inches across. It may be had of the 

 public nurserymen, and it well deserves a place in every conservatory or green- 

 house. We were informed, the plant had been introduced into this country by 

 Messrs. Lucombe, Prince & Co. Nurserymen, Exeter. 



Bignonia venusta. — A most splendid flowering climber, which ought to be in 

 every stove, warm conservatory, or greenhouse. When the plant has got esta- 

 blished, it blooms profusely, its large clusters of flowers, near twenty in each, 

 of a fine orange colour, being exceedingly showy. Each trumpet-shaped blos- 

 som is near three inches long. If the roots of the plant have the advantage of 

 a bark pit, or otherwise wormed, it greatly promotes its vigour, and is the means 

 of bringing it early into bloom. Plants may be had of most public nursery es- 

 tablishments. 



On Orchide.*. — For what purpose can the world have been adorned with 

 these Orchideous plants ? To man or animals they are scarcely ever of any 

 known use. No honey is secreted by their flowers ; neither poison, medicine, 

 nor food, are collected in the recesses of their stems ; and their very seeds seem 

 unfit for feeding even the smallest bird. We can scarcely suppose them provi- 

 ded for the purification of the unwholesome atmosphere of the forest recesses in 

 which they delight, for their organization is that of plants whose leaves perform 

 their vital actions too slowly to effect such a purpose. For what then can they 

 have beeB formed, unless to delight the sense of man, to gratify his eye by then- 

 gay colours and fantastic forms, and to shew the inexhaustible fertility of that 

 creative power which we recognise every where in Nature. If this be not the 

 object of those countless changes of form and colour which the Orchis tribe ex- 

 hibits, we shall scarcely comprehend why in this very genus Oncidium the lip 

 bears at its base a collection of tubercles which are not only different in every 

 species, but so strangely varied, that 



" Eye of newt, and toe of frog," 

 are the least singular of the forms that lie cowering in the bosom of their petals; 

 the heads of unknown animals, reptiles of unheard-of figures, coils of snakes 

 rising as if to dart upon the curious observer, may all be seen in the blossoms 

 of tlie various species, whose very flowers may bo likened to unearthly insects 

 on the wing. 



On ncmebocs species of Lupines. — In the Synopsis of the Genus Lupi- 

 nus, by Dr. J. G. Agardh, that gentleman has doscribed seventy. six certain spe- 

 cies, and adverted to seven other kinds of which very little is known. 



