60 Le Bon Jardinicr. 



feet in circumference. The plant then became fashionable, was 

 much run upon, and might have made the fortune of M. Audi- 

 bert ; Jbut he only gained about 20,000 francs. (833£. 6s. 8d.) 

 From 1818 to the present day might be seen at M. Ledin 

 Morgor, of Fontenay aux Roses, the Laurustinus (laurier-tin) 

 grafted on the way-faring tree (la mansienne), at ten feet from the 

 ground, and the common and white broom grafted in a similar 

 manner on the laburnum. The garden of M. Ledin contains 

 many curious things, which prove that the master is an en- 

 lightened amateur. 



The Rhododendron arboreum flowered in 1825 for the first 

 time, in the garden of M. Boursault in Paris, where also Glycine 

 sinensis, and the two varieties of Azalea indica, formosa, and 

 venusta, the white and purple flowering, have flowered freely. 

 Acacia semperflorens, in the garden of M. S. Bodin, at three 

 years from the seed, was seven feet high, and covered with 

 flowers ; it is a singularly elegant plant, and supposed to differ 

 from the species which passes by the same name in the nurseries. 

 iEsculus discolor has flowered beautifully, and produced 

 fruit. Melastoma malabathrica has flowered with M. Cels ; it 

 is the most beautiful of the melastomas, by the grandeur and 

 brilliant colour of its flowers. In July, 1825, Plumieria rubi'a 

 and Cryptolepis reticulata flowered in the Jardin des Plantes ; 

 the latter for the first time. Since 1820, Crinum amabile has 

 flowered there annually. In January, 1 826, Carolinea princeps 

 flowered in the conservatory of the Duke of Orleans : the plant 

 is remarkable for the glaucous colour of its branches, and the size 

 of its flowers, which are from ten to twelve inches in diameter, 

 with petals red without and blush within. This plant was 

 formerly confounded with Pachira aquatica. The latter 

 grows in the island of Cayenne; and the former in Guiana and 

 Surinam, where its kernels are eatable ; and M. Poiteau assures 

 us from personal experience, that forty of them will make a 

 meal for a botanist, while traversing the immense deserts and 

 forests of that country. 



In the summer of 1825, Dichorisandra thyrsiflora flowered in 

 the greenhouse of M. Noisette : it is nearly allied to Comme- 

 lina and Tradescantia, grows two feet high, and is terminated by 

 a panicle of magnificent blue flowers. Dracsena umbraculifera 

 also flowered in the same garden. In October, 1825, Doryan- 

 thes excelsa, a plant nearly allied to Amaryllis, began to send up 

 its flower stem, which, on the 1 5th of January following, was 

 fourteen feet high, nearly as thick as the wrist, and covered 

 with some thousands of flowers, of the most vivid crimson. 



