THE HISTORY OF THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE xix 
other familiar plants which even in those days were well 
known to a few; and Curtis’s great desire was to make 
them known to the many. The large circulation his 
magazine quickly attained must have been a gratifying 
proof that his efforts were fully appreciated; and there is 
no doubt that they bore excellent fruit. A few plates 
further on in the first volume are Cereus flagelliformis, 
Tropzolum majus, Passiflora cerulea, and Reseda odorata, 
all of which maintain a prominent position in our gardens. 
In the second volume are a few more showy flowers, such as 
the Mexican Sprekelia formosissima, Papaver orientale, and 
the Brazilian Passiflora alata; the last, it is stated, was 
“cultivated in great perfection in the stove of our worthy 
friend, James Vere, Hsq., of Kensington Gore; at the 
Physic Garden, Chelsea; and Mr. Malcolm’s, at Ken- 
nington,”’ 
Plate 97 (vol. ili.) represents Fuchsia magellanica (F. 
macrostema), under the name of F. coccinea, a name which 
belongs to a Brazilian species, introduced about the same 
date. The two were both figured in different works under 
the same name, and confused with each other until 1868, 
when Sir Joseph Hooker figured the original coccinea in 
the magazine (pl. 5740). The hardy Chilian species was 
the only one that became common in gardens, and that 
under the false name of F. coccinea. Curtis regarded it as 
a stove plant, “bearing a high price in 1789, but easily 
propagated, hence likely soon to be within the means of 
every lover of flowers.” Acacia verticillata (pl. 110), a 
native of South-eastern Australia, and one of the many 
species, with the leaves reduced to flattened petioles, de- 
serves notice, because in raising it from seed the true 
nature of the flattened petioles was revealed in the gradual 
transition in the seedlings of pinnately divided leaves to the 
small organs by which they are replaced in the adult plant. 
Plate 116 is a representation of the North American Calo- 
pogon pulchellus (Limodorum tuberosum), and is the first 
Orchid figured in the Botanical Magazine.’ It was acci- 
dentally introduced with Dionza Muscipula, and cultivated 
by James Smith, in Curtis’s own garden. ‘T'o the magnifi- 
cent and striking orange and blue Strelitzia regina, two 
" The first tropical Orchid cultivated in England was Bletia vere- 
cunda (Helleborine americana), figured in Martyn’s Historia Plantarum, 
pl. 48. It was sent from the West Indies by Houstoun (Aiton, Hortus 
Kewensis, ed. 1, iii. p. 302) before 1733, as a dried specimen ; but the 
tubers grew on being placed in a tan bed. They were received by 
Collinson, and cultivated in the garden of Wager, a Lord of the 
Admiralty. (See ante, p. xi.) 
