271 
GLOXINIA RUBRA. 
(red-flowered gloxinia.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
DIDYNAMIA. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
GESNERIACE^. 
Generic Character. — Vide vol. v. p. 219. 
Specific Character. — Plant an herbaceous perennial, with a tendency to become caulescent. Stems, 
when developed, roundish, succulent, from two to four inches high, of a reddish-purple hue. Leaves 
radical, or on the tops of the stems, with petioles of two or three inches in length, oblong, acute, 
crenated and revolute at the margins, hairy on both sides, deep green above, pale or whitish green 
beneath. Peduncles three or four inches high, hairy. Calyx of five ovate, acuminate, hairy, spread- 
ing segments. Corolla reddish crimson, much darker at the orifice of the throat, and having a tinge of 
blue towards the bottom of it. 
Several years ago, more than one nurseryman with whom we have had 
opportunities of conversing, have, at various times, imagined that they had 
succeeded in securing plants of a red-flowered Gloxinia ; but in every instance the 
expectation has proved futile, till Messrs. Young, of Epsom, in the spring of ] 840, 
imported tubers of the splendid species which we have here the satisfaction of 
figuring. Its history, as related to us by the principal of that firm, is comprised 
in the following brief particulars. 
The whole of the stock was purchased by these gentlemen of Mr, Buist, of 
Philadelphia, by whom it is stated to have been procured from Rio Janeiro a few 
years back. Having arrived at their nursery, and been kept in a moist stove ever 
since, it began to exhibit its blossoms in the month of September last, from which 
time to the present the original specimens, and those which have been raised from 
them by propagation, have not ceased to present a succession of the most brilliant 
flowers. 
When the blossoms first expand they are of a deep rich blood-red colour, which 
is very efficiently imitated in our drawing, the throat being of a far darker tint, 
with a slight shade of brown. After having been opened for some time, they 
assume a paler hue, of which crimson is the chief constituent, and at the lower part 
