BEL 



BEL 



with alternate cylindric branches : the leaves 

 are acute or acuminate, almost entire or ob- 

 scurely toothed, seven-nerved ; one lobe of the 

 base is double the size of the other; the younger 

 ones arc rose-coloured about the edge ; they are 

 all very smooth and shining, of a bright green 

 colour, paler beneath, permanent, spreading, 

 four or five inches long, and two or three inches 

 broad: the petioles are cylindric, thick, spread- 

 ing, one-third only of the length of the leaf: 

 the stipules are sessile, oblong, one-nerved, and 

 as it were three-winged, from a rib winged un- 

 derneath produced into a point ; on the sides 

 membranaceous and revolute ; they are spread- 

 ing, deciduous, and the length of the petiole : 

 the racemes are compound, cymose, androgy- 

 nous; the males very numerous; the females few 

 at the top, solitary, axillary, on long peduncles, 

 dichotomous, three inches wide: the peduncles 

 upright, cylindric, longer than the leaf, the 

 thickness of the petiole : the bractes opposite, 

 below the dichotomies and the pedicels, half em- 

 bracing, ovate or roundish, membranaceous, 

 caducous : the corolla is flesh- or rose-coloured, 

 sometimes of a dark red ; in the female flowers 

 six-petalled. It is an elegant shrub flowering 

 from May to December, and is a native of Ja- 

 maica. 



There are varieties with rose-coloured flowers ; 

 and with white flowers. 



Culture. — These plants may be raised cither 

 by seeds, lavers, or cuttings. . The seeds should 

 be sown in pots of light earth, in the early 

 spring season, and brought forward by being 

 plunged in a moderate bark hot-bed. When 

 the plants have attained sufficient strength, they 

 may be removed into separate pots, and placed 

 in the stove. 



In the second method the layers may be laid 

 down in the early spring, and be taken off in 

 the autumn, and planted in separate pots. The 

 cuttings may likewise be planted out in the 

 spring months, being transplanted into separate 

 pots after they have become well rooted, and 

 then placed again in the stove. The plants suc- 

 ceed well when kept in the bark-stove, or even 

 over the flue of the dry stove, being very orna- 

 mental both in their leaves and flowers, which 

 appear in the summer. 



BELLADONNA. See Amaryllis. 

 BELLIS, a genus containing an elegant lit- 

 tle perennial plant. The Daisy. 



It belongs to the class and order Syngcnesia 

 Polygamia Superjlua, and ranks in the natural 

 order of Conposita; Dlsco'ulece. 



The characters are : that the calyx is com- 

 mon hemispheric, upright ; leaflets ten to twenty 



in a double row, lanceolate and equal : the corolla 

 is compound radiate : corollules hermaphrodite, 

 tubular, and numerous in the disk : female ligu- 

 late, more in number than the leaves of the caiyx 

 in the ray. Proper of the hermaphrodite fun- 

 nel-form, five-cleft : of the female llgulate, lan- 

 ceolate, scarcely three-toothed : the stamina of 

 the hermaphrodite filaments are five, capillary, 

 very short : the anther cylindric and tubular : 

 the pistillum is an ovate germ : of the herma- 

 phrodite the style is simple : the stigma emargi- 

 nate : of the female, the style is filiform : the 

 stigmas two, patulous : there is no pericarpium ; 

 the calyx unchanged: the seeds solitary, obovate, 

 and compressed : no down : the receptacle naked 

 and conical. 



The species which affords the cultivated va- 

 rieties is B. perennis, Common Perennial 

 Daisy. 



This is sufficiently distinguished by its per- 

 ennial root ; truncate or praemorse at the end : 

 the leaves are radical, inversely ovate or lanceo- 

 late, or rather spatulate, blunt at the end, notched 

 and often waved about the edge, an inch or more 

 in length, and about half an inch in breadth : 

 scapes hirsute, solid at bottom, hollow at top, 

 from two to four inches long, having sometimes 

 a single leaf, and terminated bv one radiate 

 flower, frequently near an inch in diameter r 

 the florets in the disk yellow, numerous (one 

 hundred and fifty) ; in the ray white, often pur- 

 ple on the outside, and sometimes at the tip, 

 amounting frequently to near fifty in number : 

 the receptacle is surrounded by very small tuber- 

 cles, which perhaps may be nectaries : the seeds- 

 are cordate-oblong or emarginate, compressed, 

 surrounded by a whitish rim, bay-ash-coloured 

 in the middle, having a few whitish hairs on 

 them. It is a native of most parts of Europe ; 

 flowering almost all the year, shutting up in 

 the night and in wet weather. 



The Garden Daisies are all varieties of this 

 species arising from cultivation, &c. They are 

 very numerous : but the principal are the double 

 white; red; white and red striped ; variegated; 

 scarlet and pied : double-quilled, or with fistular 

 florets : double cock's-comb-shaped, white^ 

 red, and speckled: and the proliferous, childing 

 or hen and chicken daisy, which is very curious. 



Culture. — All the cultivated varieties of the 

 Daisy are hardy, and succeed in most sorts of 

 soils and situations, but in the most perfection 

 in such as are of a mellow loamy nature, and 

 which have not been enriched by manure. In 

 this, they are capable of being increased and 

 preserved, without varying, by parting and trans- 

 planting the roots annually in the autumnal ot 



