166 



PAXTON'S FLOWER GARDEN. 



of torulosa is applied. It has a perfectly straight stem, and, when young, a compact conical growth, by which it is known at 

 first sight. Its cones are, as usual, globular, and are made up of four pairs of hard woody scales, with a hexagonal 

 mucronate extremity of about two more pairs. The leaves when the plant is old are blunt, in four rows, and so 

 uniformly imbricated, that they give the young branches a regular four-sided appearance. The old wood is deep 

 purplish brown, and perfectly smooth; whereas the branches of the Evergreen Cypress and its varieties have more or 

 less of a cinnamon brown appearance. 



Is this the one and sole Indian Cypress 1 Among the specimens distributed by the East India Company, we have one 

 (named Thuja orientalis ?)) which to the foliage of this adds cones not more than one-fourth the size, the scales being 

 scarcely mucronate ; and a second found by Blinkworth in the Himalayas, without cones, the foliage of which also 

 corresponds with this. Are these really one and the same plant? That is what we cannot answer, at any rate 

 without the possibility of being wrong after all. 



Such difficulties render it impossible to tell with certainty what the stature and habit of our garden Torulosa 

 may become. Endlicher says the tree is sometimes forty feet high ; Don, that it is handsome and pyramidal ; Griffith, 

 who calls the Bhotan plant G. pendula, that it is eighty feet high, and extremely handsome {clegantissima} ; the last 

 traveller also represents the Bhotan Cypress as a tall tree running to a sharp point, like a Spruce fir, with gracefully 

 drooping branches. (See his Private Journals, p. 272, where is a figure of it-as it was seen in the village of Chindupjie, 

 a place more than 7,800 feet above the sea.) 



The accompanying figure was taken from specimens produced in the garden of the Hon. "W. F. Strangways, at 

 Abbotsbury. 



Bertolonia macttiata. {Martins.) (See p. 19, Pig-. 14) 



Upon the Eriocnema, marmoratum, given above upon the authority of M. Naudin, who has specially studied the 

 Melastomads, Sir W. Hooker makes the following observations, " Botanical Magazine," t. 4551 : — 



" But the plant is no Eriocnema. It belongs to the curious and beautiful genus Bertolonia,—' dont le caractere essen- 

 tiel consiste,' as M. Naudin has himself well expressed, ' dans la forme tout-a-fait insolite du calyce et de la capsule ; ' 

 and it is equally certain that it is the B. maadata of De Candolle and of Martius above quoted, t. 257. This fruit or 

 capsule is an elegant object, especially when the eye is aided by a small power of the microscope ; for it is singularly 

 inflated, with three very prominent angles and several ribs, and every rib, as well as the margin of the lobes of the calyx, 

 is beset with bristles, terminated by a gland." 



Btjrlingtonia pubescens. A beautiful stove Orchideous Epiphyte, from Pernambuco. 

 Flowers white. Introduced by John Knowles, Esq., of Manchester. 



B. pubescens; acaulis, foliis coriaceis apice carinatis mucronatis, racemis densissimis pendulis, labello obovato bilobo 

 breviter hastato laciniis erectis, cristas lamellis utrinque 3 valde insequalibus, columna? basi pubescentis alis 2 minutis 

 subulatis albis 2 oblongo-linearibus porrectis. 



This beautiful novelty was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society some years ago, when it received a 

 silver medal. It formed a wide tuft of dark green rigid leaves, pouring forth from their bosom a profusion of bunches of 

 snow-white blossoms. It had been sent to John Knowles, Esq. , of Manchester, from some friends in Pernambuco, where 

 it appears to be very rare. It is not now, however, introduced for the first time, for we have in our possession a dried 

 specimen, communicated by the late Mr. George Loddiges, in November, 1846, at which time we named it pubescens, in 

 allusion to the down on the column, which is not found in the other drooping white-flowered species. Of these species 

 five are now known, of which two, B. granadensis and fragrans, have the bunches of flowers erect. The other three, 

 pubescens, Candida, and venusta are thus distinguished :— 



B. pubescens has a downy column, a lip with three yellow ridges on each side near the base, and a pair of erect side 



lobes, rendering it what is technically called hastate. Its flowers are the smallest of the three. 

 B. venusta has a smooth column, a lip in no degree hastate, with many shallow ridges on each side near the base. 



Its flowers are larger than in the last, and the flowers more loosely arranged. 

 B. Candida has a smooth column, a lip very slightly hastate, with a stalk two-thirds as long as the column, and only 

 one ridge on each side, forming a broken row of callosities. The flowers are much fewer in each bunch, but twice 

 as large as in the last. 



Fkanciscea eximia. Scheidweiler. A handsome stove shrub from Brazil, with large 

 deep violet flowers. Belongs to the Linariads. Introduced by M. de Joughe, of Brussels. 



Habit of Fr. latifolia. Branches downy. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, not shining. Flowers terminal, about two 

 together, very deep purple, two and a half inches across the limb. 



In Belgium this Franciscea eximia is spoken of as the finest species of the genus yet in cultivation ; and we learn also 

 that it proves to be a free flowerer, plants of the height of two feet and a half producing successively through the blooming 



