208 DR J. M. MACFARLANE ON THE 



/. Lapagena specimens of it and parents I am greatly indebted to the Curator of Glasnevin Gardens, 



' P vSfchi? Dublin ; to the Director and Curator of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden ; to Mr Dunn of 



s. Phiiesia buxi- Dalkeith Palace Gardens ; and to Mr Laird. Both parents are indigenous to the 



western part of South America, but equally in habit, in structure, in climatic and soil 



requirements they differ strikingly. 



Lapageria rosea* grows in the forests which stretch along the lower levels of the 

 Andes from Valdivia to Conception, and produces long, wiry, whip-like stems in tufted 

 fashion ; these, by circumnutating movement, twine round shrubs and trees, and may attain 

 a length of at least twenty-five to thirty feet. Their surface is roughly striated and 

 warted, and is of a glaucous hue. The leaves when mature are about three inches long, flat, 

 and leathery, exposing an ample elaborating surface to the sunlight, while the brilliant large 

 flowers are produced singly or in clusters of from two to five along the upper parts. It 

 delights in a clear sparkling atmosphere, and in Britain must be grown in a cool hothouse. 

 Aja extremely fine variety has been brought from Southern Brazil,t and is now common 

 in conservatories. It bears white flowers, but our knowledge of the flora indigenous to the 

 intervening stretch of country is still too imperfect to enable us to say whether plants with 

 connecting tints of flower exist there, or whether the variety is a perpetuated sport. 



Phiiesia buxifolia.\ — This is a low-growing, dense, tufted shrub attaining a height of 

 from ten to fifteen inches, and throwing up hard, smooth stems of reddish-green colour 

 bearing a few minute warts. The leaves are 1-| inches long by f inch wide, of a leathery 

 consistence, and strongly reflexed ; their under surface also is of a dull white hue. The 

 flowers at largest are about one-third to one-half those of the other parent, and the 

 sepals instead of being petaloid, and nearly or quite equal to the petals in size, are of 

 a dull pink-green hue and one-third the length. It inhabits the swampy, unproductive, 

 wind and rain swept region extending from Chiloe southwards to Terra del Fuego. It 

 eminently belies its surroundings. 



Various botanists, from Sir W. Hooker's time, have accepted these parent plants as 

 types of two distinct genera ; but after minute comparison of them one is forced to the 

 conclusion that they are nearly related plants which have diverged from a common type 

 owing to great change in surroundings. 



Philageria Veitchii. — I cannot do better than reproduce Dr Masters' observations; for, 

 apart from descriptive value, they have an interest as showing the author's views on the 

 affinities of the hybrid, a matter of considerable moment when we sum up its histological 

 minutiae : — 



" Messrs Veitch's plant is a scrambling shrub, with slender, cylindrical, flexuose, rigid, 

 wiry, smooth, greenish branches. The leaves are alternate petiolate, about 1^ inch long 

 by \ inch broad, leathery, smooth, dark shining green above, paler and marked by three 

 prominent converging ribs below, oblong-lanceolate, pointed at the apex, and with a 



* Kunth, Enum. Plant., v. 283 ; Adans., i. 44 ; Bot. Mag., vol. lxxv. tome 4447 ; vol. lxxxii. tome 4892 ; Ball, 

 Jour. Linn. Soc, vol. xxii. pt». 162-166. t Bot. Mag., vol. lxxxii. tome 4892. 



I Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle ; Kunth, Enum. Plant, v. 284 ; Hooker, Flora Antartica, vol. ii. p. 355 ; Bot. 

 Mag., vol. lxxix. tome 4738. 



