NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 



By Robert Buist, Philadelphia, Pa. 



I MOST cheerfully comply with your request to give your readers a 

 short description of a few of the many new things shown at the exhi- 

 bition of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. Your experienced 

 eye detected the charms of those beautiful and unique new hardy re- 

 tinosporas (evergreens), fifteen species all told, the superb ferns, and the 

 gorgeous foliaged and variegated plants of every color and feature, 

 which are all well worthy of a few notes on their habit and culture. 



Cyrtodeira is a new tribe from the gold regions of South America, 

 They require^ a moist atmosphere when in a growing state, with rough, 

 sandy, vegetable soil, to keep them beautiful and fresh, and propagate 

 every spring from the tips of the shoots. They are capital basket plants 

 for shaded situations. 



C. metallica has bright scarlet flowers, with thick oval foliage, of an 

 olive green, with a central pink band on the midrib, diverging through 

 its hairy foliage. 



C chontalensis. The flowers are white, an inch in diameter, shaded 

 with lilac, and appear in profusion for several months. The foliage is 

 purple on the under side, and on the upper side a shaded green, spark- 

 ling with a golden metallic lustre — a very charming plant. 



VOL. IX. 21 321 



