494 GARDEN PLANTS. PART IT. 



Vinca. 



1. V. alba. A beautiful, though a very common, herbaceous 

 plant, two feet high, with rich polished green smooth oval 

 leaves, affording a fine foil to the vivid white, large, round 

 flowers, which it continues to produce at all seasons. Raised 

 from seed or by cuttings. 



2. V. rosea. MADAGASCAR PEEIWINKLE OLD MAID. In 

 all respects like the preceding, except that the flowers are of a 

 rose colour, and the stems stained with red. When in full 

 blossom, as it nearly always is, a lovely plant. Eaised from 

 seed, which it bears abundantly. This and the preceding are 

 grafted sometimes the one upon the other, it is said, with pretty 

 effect. 



3. V. major COMMON PERIWINKLE. The familiar plant of 

 the gardens and hedgerows in England; bears in March and 

 February its pretty blue flowers, of the same size as those of the 

 preceding. Occasionally met with, but by no means a common 

 plant. 



Plumieria. 



1. P. acuminata SPANISH JASMINE Gool-i-cheen. A small 

 tree, ten to twelve feet high ; not ill-looking when in full 

 foliage, with its large, lanceolate, smooth leaves, nine inches 

 long and two and a half wide, borne crowdedly, towards the 

 summits of the stems, but remarkably uncouth when the 

 succulent, gouty-looking stems are destitute of leaves, as they 

 often are in the Cold months ; bears during the Hot and Eain 

 seasons, at the ends of the stems, large corymbs of large, pure- 

 white, exquisitely fragrant flowers, with the interior of their cup 

 yellow. Propagated easily by cuttings. In the Cold season it 

 occasionally yields a pair of seed-pods or two, but very seldom. 

 In some gardens is met with a very pretty and interesting 

 variety of this shrub, the unexpanded flower-buds of which are 

 of a deep dull crimson colour. The flower when fully ex- 

 panded has one-half of the under-side of its petals dull crimson, 

 and the other half white. The borders of the petals curl 

 upwards, and are beautifully edged with crimson. The interior 

 of the flower is perhaps of a deeper yellow than the white 

 variety. 



