228 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
BEGONIAS 
Natural Order Becontace”. Genus Begonia 
BrGoNIA (name given in honour of Michael Begon, a French patron of 
botany). An extensive genus comprising about three hundred and fifty 
species, chiefly succulent herbs or under shrubs, and a few climbing 
plants, many of them having perennial tuberous rhizomes. Their leaves 
are more or less unsymmetrical, entire or lobed or toothed ; often hand- 
somely blotched with white and veined with red. The flowers are in 
many cases large and showy, bright coloured, white, yellow, scarlet, or 
rosy, the anthers and stigmas borne in separate flowers. The male 
flowers have four sepals, the female five. Stamens numerous, the 
filaments sometimes united at their base. Styles two to four, the stigmas 
branched or twisted. The fruit a capsule, frequently with wings, seeds 
minute. The species are distributed through moist tropical lands, and are 
especially abundant in South America. 
mistory The earliest species of Begonia introduced to our green- 
"houses were shrubby, and came from the West Indies and 
thereabout. Begonia nitida is the first of which there is any record, 
and it was introduced from Jamaica jn 1777. It is still a popular 
in 1816. And so on, the new species coming in fairly rapidly ; but in 
1858 the beautiful foliage-Begonias began to assert themselves with the 
introduction of B. rex. But the great impetus to Begonia-growing was 
given a few years later, when the tuberous-rooted species were introduced 
from South America. Among these should be mentioned B. boliviensis 
and B. Pearcei from Bolivia (1865), B. Clarkii, B. roseflora, B. Veitchtt, 
all introduced from Peru in 1867, and B. Davisii from Peru in 1876. 
Some of these have come from great altitudes in the Andes, B. Veitch, 
for instance, being found at an elevation of 12,000 feet above sea-level. 
From such forms magnificent hybrids have been raised, far exceeding 
the parent species in size and brilliance, and sufficiently hardy to serve 
as bedding plants, It is interesting to note, however, that, so far, all 
attempts to effect a cross between the shrubby section and these Andean 
tuberous species have failed. Possibly, at no very distant date, the 
influence of some new species may break down this barrier and give US 
