2 



OLDENLANDIA DEPPEANA. 



where he died about the close of the seventeenth century ; the name Deppeana 

 was given to our present species by Charaisso and Schlechtendahl, two distin- 

 guished botanists, in honour of D. Deppe, a botanical collector and traveller in 

 Mexico, in which place he collected our plant, and by whose exertions many new 

 and rare plants have been sent to this country, some of which have been described 

 and figured in the different periodicals. O. Deppeana grows about a foot high, 

 has little beauty in the florist's eye, its blossoms being small, and much resembling 

 those of an Asperula ; but to the botanist and to the general admirer of nature 

 it offers charms from its delicate structure and its graceful panicles of numerous 

 milk-white flowers, which continue in uninterrupted succession throughout the 

 year. 



Our plant, which we believe is as yet rare in the collections of this country, 

 was received at the Birmingham Botanic Garden last October, from Mr. Otto, 

 of the Royal Botanic Garden at Berlin, under the name Gerontogea Deppeana ; ' 

 there can be therefore no doubt but this is the true plant of Chamisso and 

 Schlechtendahl, although the leaves cannot be said, as in the description, to be 

 very acuminate ; but probably they may have been altered by cultivation. We 

 have followed De Candolle in retaining the name Oldenlandia of Linnaeus, in 

 preference to that of Gerontogea by Chamisso and Schlechtendahl, being of opinion 

 that the repeated change of names, unless for some cogent reason, only tends to 

 create confusion in the science. 



Since its arrival it has been kept in a cool stove, but in all probability it may 

 only require the green-house. It may be propagated readily by cuttings of the 

 young shoots in sand without glasses. The soil should be loam, mixed with peat 

 and a little sand, with plenty of drainers. The best materials for draining are 

 small pieces of broken flower-pots. A flat piece should be placed over the hole 

 at the bottom of the pot, upon which one, two, or three inches of drainers should 

 be put, as the nature of the plant may require : over these should be sifted a little 

 of the soil, and above that the compost in which the plant is to grow. 



Fig. 1 shows its loculicidal dehiscence ; fig. 2 its bilocular cells. 



DSl 



