88 



POPULAR GARDEN BOTANY. 



are stove-plants, but a few will bear the cooler air of the 

 greenhouse. Sida picta [Abutilon striatum), a native of Bra- 

 zil, a favourite plant in the house or greenhouse, is of very 

 rapid growth, and has rather large handsome leaves, and 

 striped orange flowers ; it is sometimes trained to the walls, 

 and fills up spaces very rapidly; linearis, a native of New 

 South Wales, and triloba, from the Cape, have white 

 flowers; nialvqflora and dioica are almost hardy, as they 

 are natives of North America ; Ahutilon pulchellum is a 

 shrub from New South Wales, almost hardy here, the 

 leaves are of a shining dark -green, the flowers white and 

 sweet; albida has whitish leaves and flowers; S. [Gay a) oc- 

 cidentalis has violet flowers ; hermannioides, nutans, and dis- 

 ticha, yellow flowers, these are South American species, 

 and all useful in those greenhouses, where shrubby plants 

 are wanted ; they are easily increased by cuttings or seeds. 

 A. vitifolia is one of the handsomest of the genus, a native of 

 Chili, but hardy enough for the open air at Dublin, though it 

 is better for the shelter of the greenhouse, and in England re- 

 quires it. This handsome shrub is from four to six feet high, 

 with cordate lobed leaves, and racemes of very beautiful flow- 

 ers, the corollas of which are large, spreading, striated, bluish- 

 lilac, the anthers yellow, and the styles reflexed, and of a 



