552 



ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 



S- 1. M. LATIFO^LIA D. iJo?! 



Identification. T). Don in Lin. Trans., iG. p. ;?70. ; Brit 



Fl. Card,, 2cl series, t. 2S8. 

 Engravings. Swt. Brit. Fl. Card., 1. c. ; and omi fig. 1026. 



Sj)ec. Char,, Sfc. Stem winged. Wings broad, 

 leafy. Leaves cordate- oblong, dentate- 

 spinose, woolly beneath. Involucre scaly, 

 appendicLilate. Pappus arranged in a double 

 series, feathery, equal, truncate at the apex. 

 (D. Don.) A climbing evergreen shrub. 

 Valparaiso in Chili, on hills, among bushes. 

 Stem 10ft. to loft. Introduced' in 1832. 

 Flowers pink, or rosy, and yellow ; Septem- 

 ber and October. 



A very singular and at tlie same time beau- 'VS^'- 

 tiful shrub, which no collection ought to be 

 without, where there are a wall and a dry soil. 



The broad-leaved Mutisia. 



102G. Mutisuj latifblia. 



Other Species. M. ilicifoUa, M. injlexa, '' 

 M. linear if dlia, M. runcindta, and M. siib- 

 spinosa, are figured and described in Hooko-'s 

 Botanical Miscdkmi/, vol. i. ; and M. arach- 

 noidea Mart, is figured in Bot. Mag., t. 2705. 

 Most of these species would probably live against a wall in a warm situation, 

 on a dry soil. At all events M. latifolia is tolerably hardy, having stood out 

 several years in the climate of London, without the slightest protection ; and 

 as it represents a family of climbers so very different from every other hitherto 

 cultivated in British gardens, we cannot but strongly recommend it to every 

 one who is curious in plants. 



Order XLIII. i5;ilICA^CE/E. 



Ord. Cn.iR. Calyx and Corolla each with 4 5 segments. Stamens -15 

 8 10, inserted variously, but alternately with the segments of the corolla, 

 where not more numerous than they. Anthers, in most, with 2 cells. 



agreeing in number with the seements of the 



stigma 



undivided. Seeds many. Albumen 



Ovart/ with its cells, in most, 

 calyx or corolla. Style and 

 fleshy. Embryo erect, slender 



Leaves simple, opposite or whorled, stipulate or exstipulate, deciduous or 

 evergreen ; entire or serrated. Inflorescence variable, the pedicels generally 

 bracteate. Shrubs, deciduous and evergreen, and some of them low trees ; 

 natives of most parts of the world ; and containing many of our finest and 

 most ornamental harpy shrubs in British gardens. 



All the species have hair-like roots, and require a peat soil, or a soil of a 

 close cohesive nature, but which is yet susceptible of being readily pene- 

 trated by the finest fibrils which belong to any kind of "plants. Peat, 

 thoroughly rotted leaf mould, or very fine loamy sand, are soils of this 

 description, and are accordingly required, more or less, for all the plants of 

 this order. The hair-like roots of the 'ricace?e soon suffer, either from a 

 deficiency or a superfluity of moisture; and hence an important part of their 

 culture in gardens consists in keeping the soil in which they grow equally 

 moist. In transplanting hair-rooted plants, they are very apt to suffer from 

 their slender fibrils coming in contact with the air : but, fortunately, these 

 fibrils are so numerous, and so interlaced with each' other, as to form a kind 

 of network, which encloses and supports a portion of the soil in which they 

 grow ; and the plants are, consequently, almost always sent from the nurseries 



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