HORTICULTURAL SHO-W. 55 



the world for rare plants, it would be the height of folly for an 

 American nurseryman to do the same. The Duke of Devonshire 

 can well afford to pay X20 for a little slip of a plant to put in 

 the palatial green-houses at Chatsworth, but there are few, we 

 fancy, even in the august precincts of The Avenue, who would 

 care to go and do likewise. 



The taste for colored-leaf plants is of very recent growth — 

 mainly, we suppose, because there were so few meritorious ones 

 known to us prior to 1850 ; but if we may judge from its won- 

 derful dissemination within the past five years, it will not be long 

 before the country will be full of it. Not longer ago than that, 

 if we recollect right, Mr. Lee, of Hammersmith, commenced exhi- 

 biting variegated-leaf plants at the Chiswick Horticultural Gar- 

 dens. Dr. Lindley told him that the managers could give only a 

 special premium for them at that time, but adequate provision 

 would be made for them in the next year's list. The public was 

 surprised at the rare beauty of the plants, and at once agents 

 were despatched to scour the Avorld for other and more curious 

 ones of the same sort. Mr. Lee's plants were of the Anoechtochy- 

 lus genus of orchids, which, it is true, were to be found in small 

 number in British houses before, but not in the quantity or of 

 the merit that his collection embraced. Of the variegated plants 

 previously cultivated, the principal ones were the Acuha Japonica, 

 the Spanish bayonet, or yucca, the variegated pine-apple, and the 

 old Agave Americana, The taste which sprung from Lee's exhi- 

 bition was greatly strengthened by the appearance of Begonia 

 Rex and Bezanthina, sent from Borneo by Mr. Hugh Low, Jr., an 

 officer of the government, and by Wm. Lobb, one of Yeitch's col- 

 lectors, who found them growing as wild weeds at the foot of the 

 monster trees of the forests of that island. Some of the varie- 

 ties have been found growing on the trunks of trees, a few feet 

 from the ground, where a bunch of moss has collected, large 

 enough to furnish a fragment of soil for the rich-tinted epiphyte. 



When these were shown at Chiswick they created a real excite- 

 ment, for nurserymen saw at once that they were bound to revo- 

 lutionize the mid-winter appearance of their green-houses ; and 

 the natural result was that high prices were paid for even the 

 smallest specimens. Fortunately the begonias are propagated 

 with the greatest ease, and thus, although a few plants only were 

 received, the new voyages to Borneo were quite unnecessary. The 

 two plants above enumerated are widely different in color and 



