FLQRICULTURAL NOTICES. 
189 
the Royal Gardens to F. Staines, Esq., of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, who sent us, in the first 
instance, specimens a foot long ; but coming in contact, as it would appear, with a 4 monster species ' 
inclosed in the same case, they were bruised and eventually perished. Others were afterwards 
forwarded of a smaller size, and one of them here figured threw out its pretty starry straw- 
coloured flowers from the depression at the top of the plant in July, 1845." The plant is at first 
somewhat round, but afterwards becomes oblong, the sides consisting of five or six deep furrows 
and as many projecting angles ; the whole surface covered with white scale-like dots ; the keel of 
the angles is flattened, as if cut off with a knife, and this is occupied with closely placed areolae, 
but bearing no spines. Bot. Mag. 4177. 
Porphyroco'ma lanceola^ta. A remarkable and very beautiful Acanth, sent to the Kew 
Gardens by Mr. Forkel, gardener to his Majesty the King of the Belgians, at Brussels ; "but 
unfortunately without any history, so as to leave us in the dark as to its native country, or the 
author of its very appropriate name (poryhyra purple, and home head of hair), given in allusion 
to the singularly richly-coloured spikes of deep purple, from the scales of which the scarcely less 
brightly-coloured (but more inclining to blue) flowers appear. It was exhibited in the Horticultural 
Society's Rooms, and excited admiration from the beauty of the blossoms ; which consists in the 
dark purple comb- like parts half covering the Lamium-like violet flowers. It is a stove plant, 
and continues flowering during the spring and summer months." The specimen mentioned is 
about a foot high, with large drooping lanceolate leaves tapering at both ends, and of a dark-green 
colour. The flower-spikes are terminal, and deeply four-angled ; the corolla protrudes 
considerably beyond the bracts. Bot. Mag. 4176. 
Sela x go di'stans. Dr. Lindley believes that a plant in the nursery of Mr. Glendinning, of 
Turnham Green, is identical with the S. distans of E. Meyer ; but adds, that 44 in the absence of 
authentic specimens, it is difficult to acquire a certainty upon the point in a genus like Selago, of 
which scarcely any species have been figured. Walpers enumerates sixty-eight of them, and 
they are very much like each other. The great peculiarity of this is its loose spikes of flowers, 
and small slender downy leaves, which are solitary on the young branches and fascicled on the 
old ones." The flowers are rather sweet-scented, but the foliage has an unpleasant odour. It 
is a greenhouse plant easily cultivated, thriving well in a sandy peat, if freely supplied with water 
at the roots, and syringed over-head night and morning, during hot weather. " It is a desirable 
species in consequence of its early and long continuance in flower. To enable it to exercise this 
valuable quality, it is necessary to repot it about the beginning of August, so as to have it well 
established before winter ; for if repotted in spring, its flowering will be either retarded or 
prevented." It is increased from cuttings. Bot. Reg. 46. 
Tasma'nnia aroma'tica. This plant was first made known in De Candolle's " System," where 
it was described from specimens gathered on the mountains of Van Diemens Land, by Brown, 
and in the country round D'Entrecasteaux' channel by Leschenault, a French traveller. But at 
that time nothing was known of the flowers, except that they were dioecious. The characters 
more recently furnished by Endlicher do not exactly coincide with this species, but possibly 
belong to T. dipetala. This species 44 is a handsome evergreen bush, with dull purple branches, 
and light green leaves, distinctly marked with transparent dots ; they are of a dead green, and 
veinless on the under side. Mr. Gunn informs us that it is very abundant in Van Diemens Land. 
Between Burghley (at the Surrey Hills) and May Day Plain, the Van Diemens Land Company's 
track, commonly called road, to Launceston, is cut through a thicket of it for upwards of a mile; 
at that place its usual height is from nine to twelve feet. It always grows in the richest humid 
soil ; in the neighbourhood of Launceston usually on the margins of rivers or small streams in 
umbrageous ravines. Every part of the plant is highly aromatic and pungent to the taste. The 
fruit is occasionally used as pepper." It is an evergreen shrub, merely requiring to be sheltered 
in a greenhouse from frost. The flowers are produced in April. Cuttings root freely in sand, if 
covered with a bell-glass and placed in bottom-heat. It was presented to the Horticultural 
Society of London, by Mr. Low, of Clapton. Bot. Reg. 43. [It would doubtless flourish, in 
most places, against a conservative wall.] 
