ACHIMENES GRANDIFLORA. 
(Large-flowered Aeliimenes.) 
Class. Order. 
DIDYNAMIA. ANGIOSPERMI A . 
Natural Order. 
GESNERACEjE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx with its tube adnate to 
the ovary ; limb five-parted ; lobes lanceolate. Corolla 
tubularly funnel-shaped, often swollen at the base ; 
limb five-cleft ; lobes sub-equal, sub-rotund. Stamens 
four, didynamous ; anthers not cohering. Rudiment of 
the fifth stamen situated below the base of the corolla. 
Nectary glandulose, in a small ring. Style slightly 
thickened towards the stigma, oblique, or with two 
separate lobes. Capsule nearly two-celled, two-valved ; 
placentas parietal , sub-sessile. 
Specific Character. — Plant an herbaceous perennial. 
Leaves ovate-oblong, serrated, larger on one side than 
the other, deep-green above, stained with blood-red 
below, covered with coarse hairs. Flowers axillary, on 
peduncles as long as the petioles of the leaves, saccate at 
the base, large deep-purplish crimson, with a whitish eye. 
Our first knowledge of this very handsome plant was obtained at Mr. Low's, 
Clapton, and Messrs. Rollisson's, Tooting, in the autumn of last year, when it 
flowered, somewhat imperfectly, at both their nurseries. In the present season 
it has bloomed more abundantly at many places ; and our drawing was made, 
about two months back, from plants sent us by Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, and Co., 
of Exeter, with whom it had previously flowered for some time. 
It appears to have been discovered in a district of Mexico, by Messrs. Schiede 
and Deppe ; though we find that the first plants received in this country came 
through a continental nurseryman, M. Van Houtte, of Ghent. It has now been 
diffused through most of the English nurseries, and will probably soon be as 
common as A. longijiora ; to which it promises to be a rival. The flowers, 
apparently, are not quite so large as those of A. longijiora ; but they are of a very 
rich and brilliant colour, essentially distinct from anything else of the kind we yet 
possess, and, probably from the shortness of the upper joints on the shoots, evince 
a disposition to come in something like large terminal clusters. As an associate 
with A. longijiora, too, and A. rosea and coccinea, the species will be a valuable 
addition to the present race of stove or warm greenhouse ornaments. 
It should be cultivated like A. coccinea ; and requires a light nutritive soil, 
composed of fresh loam, and a large proportion of leaf-mould, or a somewhat less 
amount of decayed manure. It must not be stinted for pot-room, and should be 
vol. x. — no. cxv. u 
