58 ON FLOWERING THE ASTRAPjEA. 



ARTICLE III. 



REMARKS ON FLOWERING THE ASTRAP-EA. 



BY MR. SWEENY, WELCOMBE HOUSK. 



Astrap^ea is a beautiful genus containing three species, two of which 

 are natives of Madagascar, and the other a native of Bourbon. It 

 derives its name from Astrape, lightning ; the splendid colour of the 

 flower, which is a beautiful pink. They belong to the sixteenth class 

 and seventh order of the Linnsean arrangement, and to the Byttne- 

 riaceae order of the Jussieuean. A. Wallichii (named after M. 

 Wallich, a botanist and superintendent of the Botanical Gardens at 

 Calcutta) was introduced in 1820. It is a stove plant, growing to 

 the height of twenty feet, one of which is in flower (February ] st) in 

 the varied and extensive collection of C. T. Ward, Esq. This plant 

 stands from three to four feet high, and has expanded four simple 

 umbels of flowers ; the peduncle of each is fifteen inches long, which 

 is by the weight of the umbel bent towards the ground, and requires 

 to be supported. Each umbel contains from forty to fifty distinct 

 flowers. The pedicels are about one inch long, but are hidden by the 

 involucrum. The corolla, as I before stated, is of a beautiful pink 

 colour, each having five wedge-shaped petals. The filaments are 

 awl-shaped and much longer than the petals, and are united into one 

 set, with bilocular anthers, which are productive of a great quantity of 

 farina of a yellowish colour, that gives a pleasing contrast to the colour 

 of the petals. The foliage is of a beautiful green, which is pubescent. 

 The leaves are inversely heart-shaped, fourteen inches long and twelve 

 broad, standing on petioles of about ten inches long, which are covered 

 with hairs. Previous to this plant flowering, it stood in a vinery 

 with some other plants, where it received little or no water. Last 

 September it was repotted into a rich loam and removed to a stove, 

 the heat of which rated about 75 degrees. It was placed in a pit 

 without any bottom heat (not plunged) about the middle of the house, 

 among other plants, where its roots received a copious supply of 

 water, and was syringed every night and morning, having, too, the 

 additional moisture of the flues being steamed. It showed signs of 

 blooming in about two months after being put in the stove, but was 

 nine weeks before the flowers expanded. I doubt not that many of 

 our valuable, but shy flowering exotics, if similarly treated, would 



