158 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



they occur in humid' regions ; in the higher altitudes, as in the 

 tuberous species from the Peruvian Andes, fully exposed to all 

 climatic phenomena ; in the low hot valleys and in the islands, 

 generally in shade. A large number of species occur at 

 various altitudes along the great Cordilleras of South America 

 and their continuation northwards beyond the isthmus ; another 

 large contingent of species have their home on the coast range in 

 Southern Brazil ; and another along the lower zone of the 

 Himalayas in North-east India. There are also large numbers 

 scattered over the West Indian Islands, the Malay Archipelago, 

 the Philippines, &c. Begonias are altogether absent in a wild 

 state from Australia, and so far as is at present known, there are 

 scarcely a dozen species of African origin. 



The horticultural history of the Begonia extends over a period 

 of more than a century. The first species introduced into British 

 gardens is said to have been B. nitida, which was obtained from 

 Jamaica for the Boyal Gardens at Kew in 1777. During the 

 American struggle for independence, followed by the French 

 revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, horticulture, like many other 

 industries of that period, was almost at a standstill, and it was 

 not till the Boyal Horticultural Society had been some years 

 established that a fair start was made in the career of general 

 horticultural improvement. Yet during the forty years immedi- 

 ately following the introduction of B. nitida, several other species 

 were introduced, and some of them figured in the two foremost 

 periodicals devoted to the illustration of plants at that time, the 

 now venerable Botanical Magazine, still in healthy vigour, and 

 the Botanical Register, long since deceased. Thus under plate 284 

 of the last-named periodical we read that B. suaveolens, a West 

 Indian species which we still find useful for winter decoration, 

 was first cultivated by Messrs. Lee & Kennedy, of Hammersmith, 

 in 1788, and two years later B. acuminata was introduced from 

 the West Indies by Sir Joseph Banks. Then early in the present 

 century Mr. Evans brought to England, probably from Southern 

 China, the handsome species that bears his name, and this is the 

 first Begonia figured in the Botanical Magazine, where it appeared 

 in 1813. Several species are figured in both periodicals during 

 the quarter of a century that followed, but few of them would 

 now be considered of any horticultural merit, though not devoid 

 of interest as novelties at the time. B. argyrostigma, the first 



