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POTENTILLA MENZIESII. 



Menzies' Cinquefoil. 

 Linnean Class — Icosandria. Order — Polygyria. Natural Order — Rosacea. 



"We had intended to have presented our readers this month with a figure of the 

 fine new Potentilla licolor grandifiora, and the substitution of another species for this 

 plant was only discovered too late to rectify the error in the present number. We 

 are, therefore, obliged to defer, for a short time, the publication of the P. bicolor ; 

 but as the P. Menziesii, although, perhaps, less showy than the species just named, 

 is a really handsome and desirable variety, we have thought it worth while to 

 engrave it. 



The order Rosacea, to which the genus Potentilla belongs, may be regarded as one 

 of the most important of the vegetable kingdom ; for it includes within its limit not 

 only some of the handsomest of our garden flowers, but also comprehends all the 

 most valuable of the fruits of the temperate regions, such as the apple and pear, 

 and the different varieties of the peach, plum, apricot and cherry. Leaving aside, as 

 foreign to our present purpose, the fruit-bearing genera, we may claim for the 

 Potentillas a high rank among the ornamental plants of the order. 



Of the hundred and fifty species and varieties known, all, with scarcely any 

 exceptions, are interesting plants, and a considerable number of them are indeed 

 scarcely second in beauty to the rose. 



Most of the highly coloured varieties now so common in gardens are hybrids, the 

 flowers of the wild species, which, as we have just remarked, are very numerous, 

 being, with a very few exceptions, yellow or white. 



Among the species may be cited, as worthy of cultivation, P. TJwmasii, from Italy ; 

 P. insignia, from the north of India ; P. ghndulosa, from California ; P. mollissima, 

 from the south of Europe ; P. grandifiora, from Siberia ; P. splendens, from JNcpaul, 

 all with yellow flowers; P. atrosanguinea and P.formosa, both also from Nepaul, the 

 former species with deep crimson, and the latter with rose-coloured blossoms. These 

 two species are not only interesting from their intrinsic beauty, but also from their 

 being the parents of a numerous progeny of hybrids, some of which are now to be 

 found in every garden. Of the best of these varieties we may mention Russclliana, 

 one of the oldest and best; JTopivoodiana, Maclcayana, McNabiana, Loddigesii, 

 Garneriana, Plantii, Bainesiana, Smoutii, Menziesii, now figured ; and lastly. 



