OLEMATIS CLEUULEA. 37 



interesting and showy plants, the Alstrcemeria Simsii, with scarlet and orange 

 flowers, and nearly as hardy as our present subject; A. Hookerii, rose; tricolor, 

 white, yellow, and purple; bicolor, white and yellow; Chilensis, pink; nemorosa, 

 red and yellow ; aurantiaca, orange spotted ; magnified, red, white, and green ; and 

 psittacina, crimson spotted. The species with twining stems, are now removed to 

 the genus Bomarea, and are equally deserving of cultivation with the true 

 Alstrcemerias. Bomarea acutifolia and B. Mrtella, are two of the best known 

 species, and, in favourable situations, will both attain the height of eight feet or 

 even more. 



The Alstrcemerias are found chiefly on the slopes of the Chilian and Peruvian 

 Andes, but the two species of Bomarea above named are, we believe, natives of the 

 temperate parts of Mexico. 



The genus Alstrcemeria is named in commemoration of Baron Claudius Alstromer, 

 a Swede, and a contemporary of the immortal Linnaeus. 



CLEMATIS CCERULEA 



Violet Virgin's Bower. 

 Linnean Class— Polyandria. Order — Polygynia. Natural Order — Eanunculacejj 



There appears to bo some confusion with regard to the name of this plant, which 

 is the C. azurea grandiflora of several of the London Florists, but it certainly agrees 

 with the description and figure of ccernlea given in the supplement to Loudon's 

 Encyclopadia of Plants. It is the C. ccerulea grandiflora of the Horticultural Society's 

 Catalogue. The true Clematis azurea is a very different plant to that we now 

 figure, the segments of the flower of that species being only four in number, and the 

 blossom bearing a general resemblance to that of the more recent C. tabulosa, which 

 is, however, their only point of agreement, for the habits of these two species arc 

 altogether dissimilar. 



The C. ccerulea, our illustration, was introduced from Japan in 1836, and has some 

 affinity with the C. florida, and its variety, ticolor, or as it is sometimes called 

 Sirholdtii, from the same country, differing from it chiefly in the colour of the 

 flowers, and in the shortness of tho peduncle, which in florida is much longer, and 



