THE PHILADELPHIA. FLO RIST, 203 



' Notices of New and Select Plants. X\ 



The taste for new and rare plants has become so general in the 

 neighborhood of this flourishing; city, and indeed throughout the en- 

 tire Union, that information of the character of those novelties brought 

 before the Horticultural public from time to time by the Nurserymen 

 and Florists, has long been considered an important portion of the 

 duties of a Horticultural periodical. We have observed in several 

 cotemporaries lists of this kind, but we differ most materially with 

 some of them in our conceptions of what may be esteemed new and 

 select. It is not our intention here to enter into a criticism on the 

 kind of matter which any journal may think fit to present to its 

 readers ; it is entirely their affair, not ours. It shall be our aim, how- 

 ever, to notice only such novelties as we deem worthy cultivation, 

 or such as have been actually introduced here — gleaning our infor- 

 mation from reliable sources, and giving condensed accounts of their 

 habits and character. 



We cannot commence the series better than by laying before our 

 readers an account of the 



AMHERSTIA NOBIL1S, 



N. Ord Leguminosce. — A native of the Birman Country. 

 The first specimen of this splendid plant as. we stated in our last num- 

 ber, had been imported by F. Lennig, Esq., of Philadelphia, and is in a 

 flourishing condition. When first introduced to Britain it was looked 

 upon as the greatest novelty of the day, the great Horticulturists of 

 the metropolis of the world, vied with each other in their anxiety to 

 s^e it produce its splendid racemes of flowers. Its introduction had 

 been attempted several times by Dr. Wallich, the describer of the 

 plant, but without success, until the Duke of Devonshire sent Mr. 

 Gibson into the Birman Country on a special mission to procure the 

 Amherstia. This undertaking proved successful, as Mr. Gibson in- 

 troduced to the Conservatories of Chats worth, a fine living specimen. 

 But strange to say, with all this labour, expense and care, the speci- 

 men at C-hatsworth failed to produce flowers, until at length a much 

 younger plant introduced in 1847, by the attention of Lord Hardinge 

 to the Conservatory of Mrs. Lawrence, at Ealing Park, near London, 

 by careful and scientific skill in cultivation bloomed for the first 

 time. There were also, plants introduced to Kew, Chiswick, and 

 Frogmore Gardens, about this period. A similar fact may be ob- 

 served with regard to that king of the Proteaceas ; Stenocarpus Cun- 

 ninghamii. The first specimen ot this fine plant introduced to Kew 

 Gardens, although it flourished and became a fine and healthy speci- 

 men, failed to bloom, while a small cutting of one foot high, no doubt 

 emanating from one of the first introduced plants, furnished a beauti- 

 ful bloom, in a temperate house at the garden of the United Gard- 

 ener's Society, Chelsea. The form of the flower of the Amherstia, is 

 somewhat peculiar, although a Leguminous plant as may be easily 

 seen by its pod, its flowers do not at first sight seem to be of the 

 Papilionaceous or butterfly form, so common in that order. In a 

 description of the figure of the plant given in the ik Flore des Serves" 

 of Van Houtte ; which was copied from the original drawing in Dr. 

 ^ Wallich's u Kare Asiatic Plants," a copy of which we believe is to be 

 r found at the Academy of Natural Sciences in this City : we find the 

 M following remarks : A Martaban tree, forty feet high, with deciduous ,_ 

 ^♦stipules, and large abruptly pinnate six to eight paired leaves ; — v ^) 



; _ ^d'Q^M 



