100 



PAXTON'S FLOWER GARDEN. 



Masdevallia Estrada delicata. Variable in appearance as are many species o£ 

 Orchids from others of the same genera, there is no genus that affords such striking difference 

 in the character of the flowers as is to be found in the Masdevallias, not alone in their 

 great diversity of form, but also of colour. This plant, which has appeared in Mr. Bull's 

 collection, differs from the ordinary if. Estrada}, in having more yellow in the top sepal, the 

 lower sepals also differing in their colour, being a paler shade of purple. It seems to be a 

 good grower, and will be acceptable to those who are anxious to possess complete collections 

 of these handsome and most singular plants. 



Acacia viscidula. Bentjiam. A handsome erect greenhouse shrub, with balls of deep 

 yellow flowers in March and April. Native of New South Wales. (Fig. 164.) 



This plant is one of the most useful of the New Holland Acacias, not growing to a large size, and flowering 

 profusely during all the spring. Frazer found it on the banks of the Lachlan ; and Sir Thomas Mitchell, in September, 

 scarcely in flower, at the base of sandstone mountains, in the subtropical parts of New Holland, where it formed a tree 

 12 feet high. Its leaves and branches are covered with a glutinous substance, which, when dry, cracks and gives the 

 edges of the leaves and the angles of the branches a broken appearance. In our gardens this passes under the name of 

 A. ixio]jhijl/a, a very closely allied species, with short spikes of, not solitary, flower-heads, and leaves three or four times 

 "as broad. In this the flower-heads often grow in pairs, but they are not united by any common peduncle. 



