FROM THE SOCIETY'S GARDEN. 



139 



as it were, plaited, not flat, its flowers being larger, and the 

 green on the petals far more conspicuous. In a horticultural 

 point of view it is a much finer thing than the old Snowdrop, 

 just as hardy, and as easily managed. 



March 3, 1850. 



13. CvANOTIS VITTATA.* 



Received from an unknown correspondent, supposed to 

 have been obtained from Mexico. 

 This plant, known in some hothouses under the name of Trades- 

 cantia zebrina, is an undoubted Cyanotis, with which genus it 

 corresponds in all essential circumstances. I do not, however, 

 find that the two ovules are collateral, one being erect and the 

 other suspended, a peculiarity ascribed by Dr. Robert Brown 

 to the seeds : but I have not been able to examine the ripe 

 fruit. 



The stems, which are much branched, lie prostrate, or hang- 

 down from the shelf on which the plant is placed, and are of a 

 deep rich purple ; the leaves have the same colour, but are striped 

 with a greenish grey, and when fresh are exceedingly pretty ; on 

 which account the plant is a favourite for covering rough un- 

 sightly places in hothouses. The flowers are insignificant. ; they 

 appear for a long time, one after the other, from within a couple 

 of terminal bracts, or spathes, of which one is shaped like the 

 ordinary leaves, except being sessile, the other is much shorter, 

 and boat-shaped. The calyx of these flowers is a short tube, 

 irregularly 3-parted. The corolla forms a tube, much longer 

 than the calyx, and has a flat 3-lobed limb, with ovate divisions. 

 The stamens bear a tuft of jointed hairs in the middle, and 

 protrude beyond the tube of the corolla ; the anthers are trans- 

 versely linear, or almost crescent-shaped, with a small cell on 

 each horn. The ovules are 2 in each cell, ascending, and one 

 placed above the other. When the young fruit begins to swell, 

 it turns itself stiffly downwards by a bend of the stalk, loses one 

 of its cells, and becomes 2-celled and 2-seeded. 



14. Galphimia gjlauca. Cavanilles, Icones, vol. v. p. 61, 



t. 489. 



Sent from Mexico by Mr. Hartweg in 1837. 



A beautiful shrub, easily kept in the form of a bush. The 

 leaves are a deep bluish green, ovate, obtuse, glaucous on the 



* C. vittata ; procumbens, raniosa, pilosa, foliis oblongis discoloribus 

 viridigriseo vittatis vaginis ore fimbriatis, floribus intra spatham duplicem 

 hinc foliaceam illinc cvmbiformem recurvain aggregates. - J- L. 



L 2 



