BOTANICAL NOTICES OF NEW PLANTS. 



L5 



hardy annual, bearing racemes of large bluish purple flowers, and introduced into our gardens 

 from California, by the late Mr. Douglass. It being of humble growth, both the foliage and 

 flowers suffer from the rain washing the soil over them. Bot. Mag. 



PLUMB AGINACEiE. 



Statice arborea. Willd. Tree Statice. Bot. Reg. N. S. t. 6. This is a stately and 

 magnificent plant, the brilliancy of whose blue neither precious stones nor metallic preparations 

 can approach. 



It was introduced by P. B. Webb, Esq., from the Canaries ; and according to Von Buch, 

 who visited that place, he found it only in gardens about Orotavia, and he believed it to be 

 extinct in its native place ; and, in truth, it is the most local and rare of all known plants. It is 

 only on a few rocks, called the islets of Burgado, which seem as if broken off from the coast of 

 Teneriffe by some violent convulsion of nature, that this rare plant is found, surrounded on every 

 side by the ocean. 



The temperature of the climate in which it grows is described as varying between (30 and 

 86 Fahr., the air being cooled by breezes from the N.N.W., E.N.E. : the sky is seldom overcast, 

 there is little rain, except in November and January, when it falls in heavy showers: the soil 

 is composed of volcanic tufa, basalt, scoria, and sheets of lava, in a state of decomposition. But 

 although the quantity of rain that falls is small, the air of the islets inhabited by Statice Arborea 

 must be constantly moist, in consequence of evaporation from the surface of the sea. 



A plant of this species was exhibited at one of the meetings of the London Horticultural 

 Society, from the establishment of Messrs. Luccombe, Pince, and Co., of Exeter, which was 

 six feet high, and covered over with large clusters of flowers, and such was the admiration 

 excited by the beauty of this plant, that it was rewarded with a gold medal : an unusual mark 

 of distinction. 



It is well adapted for planting in the bed or borders of a conservatory, and thrives well in 

 an equal mixture of loam and peat, and it flowers from April to June. It strikes freely from 

 cuttings of the young shoots. Bot. Reg. 



MONOCOTYLEDONES. 



ORCHIDACEiE AND VANDEjE. Lindl. 



Maxillaria tenuifolia. Lindl. Slender-leaved Maxillaria. Bot. Reg. N. S. t. 8. This 

 is an exceedingly pretty Maxillaria, bearing crimson and yellow flowers. It is a native of 

 Mexico, in the neighbourhood of Vera Cruz, where it was found by Mr. Theodore Hartwig, a 

 naturalist employed by the London Horticultural Society, as a collector in that country. 



The freshness and greenness of the leaf when out of flower is so striking as to make it 

 worthy of cultivation, and it is one of the easiest to manage. It succeeds in a warm damp 

 stove in a pot, with a block of wood thrust into the soil, and the long branching rhizoma tied to 

 it. Bot. Reg. 



Oncidium Forbesii. Hook. Mr. Forbes' Oncidium. Bot. Mag. t. 3705. This is 

 certainly a most beautiful species of Oncidium, discovered by Mr. Gardner in the Organ 

 Mountains in the year 1837, and sent by him to his patron, his Grace the Duke of Bedford, 

 Woburn Abbey. It bears a large panicle of flowers, resembling in shape those of O. crispum, 

 but instead of being of a brown colour, the petals and sepals are of a deep scarlet orange bordered 

 with yellow, with white disc spotted with scarlet, at least such are the markings according to 

 the plate above referred to. Its specific name, Forbesii, is in compliment to his Grace's gardener, 

 Mr. Forbes, who has been very successful in the cultivation of numerous plants which have 

 been sent to this country by Mr. Gardner. Bot. Mag. 



