PLATYCODON GRANDIFLORUM. 
(Great-flowered Platycodon.) 
Class. Order. 
PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
CAMPANULACEJE. 
Generic Character.— Calyx five-cleft. Corolla 
five-lobed at the apex, large, funnel-shaped. Stamens 
five, free ; filaments broadest at the base. Stigmas 
three to five. Capsules three to five-celled, dehiscing 
by three to five valves at the apex, which are septife- 
rous in the middle ; cells, when five, alternate with the 
calycine lobes and stamens. Seeds ovoid, larger than 
in any genus of the order, shining, but not angular. 
Lea ves alternate or nearly opposite, sessile, of a middle 
size ; upper ones the smallest. Flowers few, terminal, 
solitary, pedunculate. 
Specific Character. — Plant quite glabrous, glau.. 
cescent. Leaves ovate, lanceolate, coarsely serrated. 
Corollas large, somewhat five-cleft, deep blue. Stig- 
mas five, five-celled. Stems simple. Peduncles ter. 
minal. 
Synonym es.— Campanula grandi flora ; C gentia- 
noides. Wahlenbergia grandiflora. 
The name accompanying the annexed plate, is applied by Dr. Lindley to a plant 
recently introduced to the country, through the Horticultural Society of London. 
Mr. Fortune, who was sent out by the Society to China, as Collector, forwarded it 
from thence. 
Many differ from Dr. Lindley in considering it identical with the old Campanula 
or Wahlenbergia grandjijlora, which is synonymous with Platycodon grandiflorwrn. 
Our drawing was prepared from a plant grown by Mr. W. P. Ayres, Gardener to 
J. Cook, Esq., of Brooklands Park, Blackheath, Kent. The history of the plant in 
question, which may be considered a type of all now in the country, with an account 
of its treatment up to the time it produced flowers, is contained in the following 
extract from a letter received from Mr. A., who states, " I received the plant from 
the garden of the Horticultural Society, early in the spring of last year, under the 
mark of Beautiful Campanulacea, from China, and it was at that time a mere 
speck, not more than the eighth of an inch long. For some time I doubted whether 
I should be able to induce it to start, but at last, by being kept in the plant stove, 
it began to grow. It was then shifted from a two, to a five-inch pot, in a mixture 
of very fibrous loam, intermixed with half decomposed leaf-mould, and a little sharp 
sand ; and as soon as it was established, it was removed into a nine-inch pot, using 
the same compost, with an admixture of small charcoal. It was kept in the stove 
at a brisk growing temperature, with plenty of moisture, until the first flower 
