294 Notes and Gleanings. 



are not only remarkable for the size and beauty of their blossoms, but also for 

 the facility with which they may be cultivated. Both are native of the Andes of 

 Peru, and grow at an elevation of from 12,000 to 12,500 feet. 



Though presenting a certain amount of similarity in their aspect, the two 

 sorts are abundantly different both as to foliage and flowers. B. Veitchii has 

 thick concave leaves of an obliquely ovate or roundish cordate outline, two- 

 flowered scapes eight to ten inches high, and large flowers of a bright cinnibar red 

 color, one being female, and rather smaller than the male. B. rosceflora has also 

 thick concave leaves ; but they are of a more rounded outline, with much deeper 

 basal lobes, and the veins are so deeply impressed as to render the surface 

 buUate ; while the scapes, which are red, like the petioles, are three-flowered ; 

 and the large flowers are of a clear rose-color, one of the three being female. 

 They are thus abundandy distinct as decorative plants, and, out of bloom, have 

 more the aspect of some broad-leaved saxifrage, such as S. ciliata, than that with 

 which we have hitherto been familiar amongst begonias. There are other tech- 

 nical differences, such as the form of the bracts, which are oblong in B. Veitchii, 

 and broader and shorter in B. i-osce/lora : while in the first the wing of the ovary 

 is blunt-pointed, the ovary being smooth ; and in the latter it is acutely pointed, 

 the ovary being hairy. 



No doubt these very showy novelties will open out a new field, of which the 

 hybridizer will not be slow to avail himself — Florist. 



SCHizoSTYLis COCCINEA. — I think the value of this plant as a winter flow- 

 erer ought to be more generally known. Some plants which flowered here for 

 some months during winter were so much admired, and so many inquiries were 

 made about them and the proper mode of culture, that I conclude the plant is 

 not generally known. Its value, moreover, as a flower to cut for bouquets and 

 other ornamental purposes, is very great ; and, the more the expanded flowering- 

 stems are removed from the plant, the faster and stronger do the backward stems 

 advance into flower. 



The culture is exceedingly simple, and consists in treating them much in the 

 same way as bedding-plants ; that is, to propagate them during the first three 

 months of the year by suckers and division of the roots, potted singly into two 

 or three inch pots, according to strength, and, when well rooted, to be transferred 

 to a cold pit, and gradually hardened off so as to bear exposure to the open air 

 towards the end of May. They should be planted out on a sheltered border in 

 a bed of good compost not too light, and at a maximum distance of eighteen 

 inches apart, kept moderately well watered through the summer, and encouraged 

 to make as free a growth as possible, and then lifted carefully with a good ball 

 of earth early in September, and potted in six or eight inch pots. After keeping 

 them in a close pit for a week or two, they should be transferred to the stage of 

 a greenhouse or conservatory, and they will soon commence to throw up their 

 flower-stems. — jfohn Cox, in Florist. 



