122 PLDMBAGO LARPENJ.r. 



should by no means influence the course of treatment adopted for them in this 

 country.' 



The Rhododendron lanatum is a shrub of some size, flowering in June, and will 

 probably prove one of the hardiest of the group. It was discovered at an 

 elevation of about 10,000 feet near Jongri and Chola. As its specific name implies, 

 it is remarkable for the dense coating of down upon the back of its handsome 

 foliage. 



PLUMBAGO LAPPENTtE. 



Lady Larpoit's Lead wort. 

 Linnean Class -Pentandria. Order — Pentagynia. Natural Order — Plump.aginace.«. 



The Plumbago Larpentas is now so well known, that we feel an apology is due to 

 our subscribers for occupying our pages with so familiar a plant; a circumstance due 

 solely to our having been deprived, by an accidental delay, of one or two of the 

 drawings intended for this month's illustrations. 



~No plant of recent introduction has given rise to so great a diversity of opinions 

 as the Plumbago Larpentoe ; by some it has been injudiciously extolled, whilst by 

 others, less successful in their treatment of it, the plant has been as unduly 

 depreciated. Its thin fugacious blossoms, and but partial hardiness, doubtless 

 deti'act considerably from its merits ; but the bright colour of its flowers, and the 

 peculiar freshness of its ciliated foliage, will always procure it admirers. The late 

 period at which it blossoms renders it, perhaps, more liable to injury from the 

 early frosts and autumnal rains, than many plants which are not one whit more 

 robust. 



When treated as a hardy herbaceous perennial, it suffers less from the cold of 

 the winter months than from the late springs so characteristic of our climate. The 

 average temperature of the winter at Shanghae (one of the localities where this 

 plant is found), scarcely exceeds that of the same season in England ; but the spring 

 frosts, so injurious to many of our shrubs and perennials, are unknown in that 

 latitude, and the summers are not only considerably hotter than our own, but also 

 of longer duration ; so that the plant is, up to a late season of the autumn, subjected 

 to a degree of heat by which it is so thoroughly matured, that it is enabled to resist 

 the cold of the winter mouths with far more success, than the succulent specimens 

 produced under the influences of an English autumn. 



