[Plate 68.] 



THE CHINESE PLATYCODE. 



(PLATYCODON CHINENSE.) 



A Half-hardy Herbaceous Plant, from the Southern Coast of China, belonging to the Order of 



Bellworts. 



Specific Character. 



THE CHINESE PLATYCODE.— Glaucous, erect. Leaves ovate, finely serrated as far as the point. Flowers racemose. 



Stigmas five. Capsule hemispherical. 



Platycodoi) grandiflorum : Lindley in Journal of Horticultural Society, vol. i., p. 305, not of Alphonse De Candolle. 



THIS is the finest herbaceous plant obtained for the Horticultural Society in China by 

 Mr. Fortune ; but it requires skilful management to gain the beauty of the 

 specimen represented in the accompanying plate, which was prepared in the Chiswick 

 Garden. It is there cultivated in a pot, filled with peat loam and sand, the first and 

 last in excess, exposed freely during the summer under the slight shade of a low wall, and in 

 winter kept dry in a cold frame. Thus managed it produces fine straight stiff branches 

 from two to three feet high, bearing several large deep blue flowers in succession at the 

 end, and ripening seed in some abundance. 



The roots are perennial, fleshy, and connected with a stout neck, where the 

 buds are seated, from which the stems are annually produced. The latter are un- 

 branched, glaucous, with a purplish tint, and covered with leaves from the base to the 

 setting on of the flowers ; every year they drop out of the neck (disarticulate) by a 

 clean convex scar, which consequently leaves a concavity or socket in the neck, into 

 which water must never be allowed to penetrate. The leaves are firm, ovate, nearly 

 sessile, deep green above, glaucous beneath, and edged with purple; their sides are 



