Notices of new and interesting Plants. 13 



dromus Florce Nepalensis, p. 186., in ascribing to the Araliaceae ' semina erecta ' [erect seeds] instead of 

 « semina pendula ' [seeds pendulous] ; and although I have been long aware of the blunder, it is only now 

 that I have had an opportunity of correcting it." 

 This correction does not apply to Lindley's Introduction, which accurately describes the seeds as pendulous. 



II. Vmhelllferce. 



881a. PRA'NGOS Lindl. Peangos. (Native name most probably.) 5.2. Umbelllfem. [Dec. prod. 4 239 



pabularia Lindl. food-yielding ^ A ec | 1 ... Ysh w E. Indies. 1824. S 1 Wl.pl. as. rar!212 



t In the 9th number, recently published, of Wallich's Rarer Asiatic Plants, the prangos hay plant is 



figured and described ; and such extraordinary agricultural properties are ascribed to it that we take 



the earliest opportunity of noticing it to our readers. 



" Its properties as a food for agricultural animals appear to be heating, producing fatness in a 

 space of time singularly short, and also destructive to the Fasciola hepatica, or liver fluke, which in 

 Britain, after a wet autumn, destroys some thousands of sheep by the rot, — a disease that, to the best 

 of my [Mr. Moorcroft's] knowledge, has in its advanced stages proved incurable. The last-mentioned 

 property of itself, if it be retained by the plant in Britain (and there appears no reason for suspecting 

 that it will be lost), would render ii. especially valuable to our country. But this, taken along with 

 its highly nutritious qualities, its vast yield, its easy culture, its great duration [a single planting will 

 continue in healthy and profitable growth for forty years or more ; hence the plant is a most durable 

 perennial], its capability of flourishing on lands of the most inferior quality, and wholly unadapted to 

 tillage, imparts to it a general character of probable utility, unrivalled in the history of agricultural 

 productions. Wheii once [it is] in possession of the ground, for which the preparation is easy, it re- 

 quires no subsequent ploughing, weeding, manuring, or other operation, save that of cutting and of 

 converting the foliage into hay. . . . From various facts it is conceived not unreasonable, to presume, 

 that, by the cultivation of this plant, moors and wastes, hitherto uncultivated, and a source of dis- 

 grace to British agriculture, may be made to produce large quantities of winter fodder, and that the 

 yield of highlands and of downs enjoying a considerable depth of soil may be trebled." 



Britain does not yet contain living plants of P. pabularia, although it appears that seeds of it were 

 sent here as early as 1824. Whether when living plants be possessed, British winters may not be too 

 severe for them, remains to be proved : but the writer above speaks as if he had little or no doubt 

 on this point ; and, as the plant is from a temperate part of the East Indies (the neighbourhood of 

 Imbal or Droz), it may possibly be sufficiently hardy. 



A figure of P. pabularia will be found in Vol. II. p. 355. under the remarks on Arracacia esculenta, 

 a perfectly different plant. 



III. Ranunculacece $ spiirue. 



PJECWIA Moiian carnea plena, thesemidouble treepseony, deserves to rank among the finest of the 

 varieties of the beautiful species to which it belongs. In the gardens, where it is at present extremely 

 rare, it is called " the Double Papaveracea Pasony ;" a name we are obliged to alter, because it is a 

 variety of P. MoHtan, and not of P. papaveracea. (Lindley in Bot. Reg. 1456.) 



In this order, that peculiar plant KnowltbnzV* rigida is (Jan. 15.) displaying its compound umbel of 

 greenish-white flowers, in a green-house at the Chelsea Physic Garden ; where, in the open air, trained 

 to the face of a wall, Clematis pedicellata Swt. (Clematis cirrh6sa /3 pedicellata Dec.) abounds injpendu- 

 lous blossoms. This species is far more prevalent than may be suspected. Not many have observed the 

 technical distinction which distinguishes it from C. cirrhbsa, whose blossoms are sessile, or nearly so, in 

 relation to the involucre ; while those of C. pedicellata are stalked. The Christmas rose (Helleborus 

 niger) may be found in the gardens, exhibiting, in flowers recently opened, its snow- white sepals, which , 

 as they advance in age, acquire a green colour, and ultimately a red one. 



X. Ftimariacea-. 

 *2050a DACTYLOCA'PNOS Wal. {Daktylos, finger, kapnos, fumitory ; berries finger-shaped.) 17. 2. 



ihalictrifclia Wat. Thalictrum-lvdJ. O or 3 au.o Y.Br Nepal 1831. ?S s.l Sw.rl.gar.2.s.l27 

 Dielytra scandens Don Prod. Fl. Nep. 

 Possessed by Messrs. Whitley, Brames, and Milne, at Fulham. | 



2047. CORYDA'LIS. _, _ ., . „„„ 



19187a bibracteata Haw. 2-bracted & A or | f.my Pk O co Haworth, MSS. 



XXIV. Malvacete. 

 2014 HIBI'SCUS palustris L. This lovely species is hardy, but the specimen figured was produced in a stove - T 

 'for although the plant adorns the swamps of America, from Canada to Carolina, it does not blossom satis- 

 factorily in the open air of England. This defect Professor Lindley imputes " to the general lowness of 

 our isothermal [open air] temperature." [I have seen it blossom in the open air, planted in rich loam, at 

 the base of a south wall, where its annual stems were stout, a yard high, and the foliage large and 

 healthy.] Seeds of this charming plant may be procured abundantly from North America, and are often 

 imported for sale along with other American productions. {Bot. Reg. 1463.) 



M A'LV A miniata. This mallow is deservedly prized for its free growth and abundantly produced ver- 

 milion blossoms. It is suffrutescent, but is culturable as an annual : thought to be a native of Chile, 

 hence not absolutely hardy. {Sweet's Flower-Garden, n. s. 120., Nov. 1831.) 



In the Chelsea Botanic Garden, Malvaviscus arbbreus displays its flowers. A species of Hibiscus, 

 whose name is not there known, now blooms at Young's : in foliage and in flowers it approaches H. Ma- 

 nihot. 



XXXVI. Kypericineee. 



21 ^ab?a M ia smooth * □ pr 5jl.au R S. Amer. ... C l.p Bot. cab. 1752 



XLIV. Escallon&ss. 



ffl tmSS«. Montevideo*^ or 6au W Mon.Videol827. C p.l Bot. reg. 1467 



E An fi e d veSre!,?s"ub',- whose^vhfte flowers are produced in large corymbose panicles at the extremity 



