SEEDLING CHINESE AZALEAS. 
(1, Exquisita. 2, Optima. 3, Broughtonii.) 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
ERICACEiE. 
GARDEN VARIETIES. 
The popularity already attached to the numerous superb varieties of the 
Chinese Azalea in common cultivation, is likely to be considerably increased 
by the recent addition of a number of seedlings, of a decidedly improved character. 
An extensive assortment of these flowered last spring in the exotic nursery of 
Messrs. Knight and Perry, at Chelsea, and a selected few were noticed at that 
time in our last volume, and figures executed of the three splendid kinds which 
constitute the accompanying group. 
Considering the important feature which the family now contribute to the 
great metropolitan floricultural shows, and indeed generally to similar exhibitions 
throughout the provincial districts also, we have reason to believe that the present 
embellishment will be favourably received by the mass of our readers, and 
the exertions of the hybridists, so signally successful, will meet with a corre- 
sponding encouragement. We can only give our selection as a specimen, chosen 
rather for their relative distinctness, than for any superiority they possess over 
several of the others noticed last season, some of which are undoubtedly as 
deserving the attention of the culturist as the three now depicted. We do not, 
therefore, wish to exalt them above the varieties in question, but merely to show 
how much they are in advance of those which have already elicited, by the 
flaunting gaiety of their flowers, such a copious amount of public patronage. 
The habit of all these plants presenting scarcely any variation, and our 
representation conveying a very correct notion of the flowers, it would hardly 
appear necessary to allude individually to any of the varieties depicted, were it 
not for an approximation in the flowers of exquisita to those of an older 
acquaintance (A. ind. mriegata), which might lead some to regard it as the same 
thing. It differs from that variety in the spots, and the edges of the pink 
colouring being more distinctly defined, and in the blossoms usually appearing 
Class. 
PENT ANDRI A . 
