GLEANINGS AND ORIGINAL MEMORANDA. 



Cambessedesia Paraguayensis. This singular Melastomad appears to be the first 

 species of the genus introduced in a living state to this country. The flowers are produced 

 in erect corymbose panicles, in colour rosy red. It flowered during the summer of 1.881 

 with Messrs. Henderson, of the Pine Apple Nursery, Maida Vale. Its native country, 

 Paraguay, would point to its being a warm greenhouse or intermediate temperature plant, 

 requiring plenty of light, as it is described as inhabiting fully exposed places. 



Rootstock short, woody. Stems numerous, ten to eighteen inches high, annual, herbaceous, leafy, subcorymbosely 

 branched above, more or less minutely hispid or glabrate, four-angled, the angles narrowly winged. Leaves uniform, 

 three-fourths to nearly one inch long, sessile, bioadly ovate or elliptic ovate, acute, three-nerved, pale green margins 

 quite entire, ciliate. Flowers in terminal corymbose glandular-hairy panicles, with stiff erecto-patent branches, bearing 

 small leaves at the forks. Flowers two-thirds of an inch in diameter, shortly pedicelled, erect. Calyx green, glandular. 

 Tube one-sixth of an inch long, oblong-campanulate, five-ribbed, green ; lobes longer than the tube, subulate-lanceo- 

 late. Petals twice as long as the calyx-lobes, broadly ovate, acute, ciliate, rose-red. Anthers nearly as long as the 

 petals, nearly equal in size, slender, falcate, larger with a two-lobed tubercle at the base in front, and a smaller 

 simple tubercle behind ; smaller anthers with a simple tubercle in front and none behind. Ovary quite glabro\is, 

 style long, stout, red, defiexed. Capsule almost globose, enclosed in the calyx-tube, three-celled, three-valved, valves 

 rather crustaceous. Seeds very minute. — Botanical Magazine, 6604. 



Masdetallia Reichenbachiana, Endr., syn. M. Normanni, Hort. This is a beauti- 

 ful species, very distinct in character, possibly more so from a horticultural than from a 

 botanical point of view. The funnel-shaped tube is much longer than is usual in other 

 Masdevallias, and the colouring is alike different from that of others. It is altogether a 

 very desirable plant, but as yet extremely scarce, beiug confined to some dozen examples, 

 nearly — if not quite — all, we believe, in the possession of the Rev. J. B. Norman, Whit- 

 church Rectory, Edgware, who is one of the most successful cultivators of Orchids, and 

 has one of the most select collections of the cooler species in existence. The plant under 

 notice grows well with treatment similar to that required by other species. 



Tube funnel-shaped, narrowed at the base, very slender tails, and thin texture. Tube and tails whitish, with a 

 blood-red hinder-part in the typical variety. There are others with radiating blood-red lines, others which are nearly 

 black. Flowers two inches long. — Gardener's Chronicle, N.S., vol. ix., p. 257. 



Sarracenia purpurea. Linnaus. A swamp herbaceous plant with dull purple flowers, 

 from the United States. Belongs to Sarraceniads. (Pig. 14 L) 



Under the sixth plate of Vol. I. of the present work are various remarks touching the economy and cultivation of 

 the curious race to which this belongs. To what was then said we now add some remarks by Dr. Asa Gray in his 

 beautiful work on the Genera of United States plants : — 



" The pitcher or open tube of the leaves evidently belongs to the petiole, which is also simply winged or margined 

 along the inner side ; while the blade is represented by the hood, or rounded appendage at the apex, which cannot be 

 called a lid, as it never closes the orifice, nor is it so much incurved as at all to cover it, except in two species. This 

 proper lamina is rudimentary in Heliamphora, and very small in proportion to the ample orifice which extends someway 

 down the inner side, and thence a double wing-like border extends to the base, appearing just as if the two margins of an 

 infolded leaf were united by a seam, so as to leave the free edges outside. In Sarracenia this wing, or margin, is simple 



O o -5f- 



