TROPiEOUTM SPECIOSXJM. 



27 



Order Limmnthacece, to which it belongs, is indeed associated by botanists very 

 closely with the Tropceolum tribe. Lindley even includes it in that family, though 

 we think there are several points of difference between them. It is curious that, 

 in these three orders, Cruciferce, Tropceolacece, and Limmnthacece, the same acrid, 

 antiscorbutic principle should be found to exist, and we believe it occurs in no 

 other tribes of the vegetable kingdom. 



We have already had occasion to remark under the head of Calochortus, that most 

 of the Natural Orders include within their limits plants which present anomalies 

 in their structure, and possess points of agreement with other orders nearly related 

 to them ; and of this truth our present illustration offers another example. 



The Nasturtium tribe, of which the genus Tropceolum is the type and chief compo- 

 nent, is characterized by Botanists, among other marks of distinction, by the absence 

 of stipules, or small leaf-like appendages at the foot of the leaf-stalk, of which 

 good examples may be seen in the Eose, Geranium, Passion-flower, and many others. 



M. reference to our plate will render evident that, in the case of Tropceolum 

 speciosum, this distinction does not hold good; for at the base of the petiole will be 

 seen a fringe-like stipule, which, we believe, is peculiar to the present species, and 

 by which the order is connected with the Geranium family, with which it 

 has other important points of agreement, though to the uninitiated reader the 

 resemblance between the plants of the two orders may be very slight indeed. 



The exact number of species now in cultivation of the genus Tropceolum we are 

 unable to give, but it certainly exceeds twenty. One of the most remarkable of 

 the newly-introduced species, is T. Deckerianum, sent from Venezuela to the Botanic 

 Garden, Berlin. The flowers have 'a scarlet spur two inches long, tipped with 

 green, green hairy sepals, five, intensely blue, wedge-shaped, toothed, short 

 petals, and stamens of the same colour. It may be grown out of doors in 

 summer, or may be kept in a pot and trained like other small species of the 



genus. 



' * 



The word Tropceolum is derived from tropceum a trophy, from the resemblance 

 of the leaf (of T. minus and T. majus, the species first introduced) to a buckler, 

 and of the flower to an empty helmet, of which trophies were formed. 



It may be, perhaps, necessary to observe that our drawing was made from the 

 depending extremity of one of the shoots of the plant from which it was taken, and 

 from its small size gives but a faint idea of the beauty of the whole plant when in 

 flower. 



Van tloutlcs, !i<n, lea Sena quoted in Paxtou't FlowerGard 



