148 
INGA PULCHERRIMA. 
The irritability common to the leaves of many species of Mimosse, and especially 
M. pudica and sensitiva^ is also displayed, though to a less striking degree, in the 
plant under notice, particularly when grown in a warm stove. If the young leaves 
are pressed roughly by the hand, exposed to a strong current of air, or a sudden 
depression of temperature, they rapidly contract and fold together, but soon expand 
and raise themselves again to their usual position. When cultivated in the green- 
house the leaflets never expand, even in the brightest and warmest days throughout 
the whole course of the winter season. 
In its cultivation, the chief things to be thought of, are the selection of a suit- 
able medium for the roots, to provide a congenial atmosphere in the growing 
season, and afterwards conditions favourable to a suspension of vegetative activity. 
A light loam added to an equal proportion of peat and sand, enriched with well- 
reduced leaf-mould, may be used with propriety. A greenhouse temperature is 
decidedly most proper during the summer season, and till the autumn is far 
advanced. In winter it should be kept in the stove, where it may remain till May 
or June. 
It is stated to be a native of Mexico, in Loudon's " Hortus Britannicus," and 
introduced to this country in 1822. 
The generic title is a South American name adopted by Marcgraa, a naturalist 
who wrote on the Natural History of Brazil, about the middle of the seventeenth 
century. 
