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STACHYS COCCINEA. 
(SCARLET-FLOWERKD HEDGE-NETTLE. ) 
CLASS. ORDKK. 
DIDYNAMTA. GYMNOSPERMIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
LABIATE. 
Generic Character. — Corolla with the upper lip arched ; lower lip broad, reflexed ; middle lobe largest, 
emaiginate. Stamens inclining towards the reflexed side. 
Specific Character. — Plant herbaceous, perennial, growing from a foot to eighteen inches high. Stem 
square, with obtuse angles. Leaves ovately-cordate, crenated, hairy. Flowers usually six in a 
whorl, red or scarlet. Calyx campanulate, five-toothed, hairy. Tube of Corolla nearly straight. 
Gerrnen four-cleft, on a raised fleshy receptacle. 
Our sole reason for introducing a figure of this valuable old plant is one by 
which we frequently sufi'er ourselves to be actuated — the desire to restore to general 
favour an extremely showy object, over which a shadow has long rested. Forming 
one of a large group which every successive season brings into yet greater request, 
we wish to see it no longer kept in the shade, but ranking with the most esteemed 
of related plants, in the adornment of the border and parterre. 
The group to which we have above alluded is composed of those highly beau- 
tiful and interesting species which are too tender to thrive continually in the open 
ground, but w^hich, when properly conserved in frames during winter, lend a grace 
to the summer plot, which no purely hardy plant could commensurately furnish. 
Next to hardy herbaceous perennials, their management is of the most simple 
description, and attended with the least possible trouble or expense. A common 
frame to cover them in the winter, maintained so dry and cool that when severe 
frosts occur it may be thoroughly enveloped in litter or leaves for a lengthened 
period, without any attention, is all the protection they demand ; and the only 
other culture requisite is once potting, occasional waterings while in pots, propa- 
gation in the autumn, and transplantation in the month of May. 
