46 
FLORICULTURAL NOTICES. 
seems to flower at different seasons of the year." A shrub under cultivation, growing three or 
four feet high, with alternate, broadly-lanceolate, acuminate leaves, bearing terminal corymbs of 
white or cream-coloured flowers, whose stigmas are a very conspicuous feature. In its native 
country it is said to attain the dimensions of a tree. Bot. Mag., 4199. 
Ruei/lia macrophyl'la. " This fine herbaceous plant is a native of Santa Martha, accord- 
ing to Vahl, who first discovered it. His figure, however, was taken from a starved wild specimen, 
and gives no idea of the beauty of the species in the hands of English gardeners. He supposed 
that it habitually produced two flowers on a stalk, while in fact it bears large branching forked 
panicles, loaded with flowers of glowing scarlet, and nearly three inches long." This noble stove 
plant was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society, in October last, by Mr, Carton, 
gardener to His Grace the Duke of Northumberland. Bot. Reg., 7. 
Stanho'pea inodo v ra. Is in many respects like S. graveolens, but paler and scentless. " It 
differs from S. graveolens not merely in its pale scentless flowers, but other circumstances of more 
importance. In the parts of the flower we are not indeed prepared to point out much difference 
beyond the form of the column, which in this species has its side wings narrowing downwards till 
they disappear, while S. graveolens has them as broad at the one end as the other, whence its 
column has almost the form of a parallelogram." They differ also in the form of their flower- 
spikes : that of S. graveolens is very wide, while in S. inodora it is quite the reverse. 
" If this species were to be distinguished by more popular characters, it might be stated to 
have the inflorescence of S. insignis, the form of S. graveolens, and the colour of S. saccata, without 
its dots." Bot. Reg., 65. 
Stanho^pea tigri'na. " Perhaps no Orchidaceous plant is more calculated to attract attention 
than the present, whether we consider the large size of its blossoms, their strange form and almost 
waxy consistence, their singular markings, or the powerful fragrance they exhale, scenting the 
whole stove, and almost too strong to be agreeable ; but which is considered to resemble a mixture 
of Melon and Vanilla. The species is not now uncommon in our collections, and is said to have 
been introduced to them by the Messrs. Low of Clapton, from Xalapa in Mexico. Like the 
other StanJiopeas, it is easily cultivated, only requiring to be suspended from a beam of the stove 
in a wire basket, filled with sphagnum and other mosses, through which the flower-stalks penetrate 
downwards, and hang below the basket, the pseudo-bulbs and leaves being seen above." Bot. Mag. 
4197. Of the several varieties of this species with which we are acquainted, the one here 
described has the most pale flowers ; the various markings of the more dark ones are superb. 
Cultivation has a strikingly beneficial effect upon the members of the genus. 
Sinnin'gia veluti v na. " This is the handsomest of the genus Sinningia, with large ample 
dark-green velvety leaves, the younger one and peti©les tinged with red, very large red calyces, 
and large flowers. Independent of the angled or winged calyx, there is something in the form and 
colour of the flower and general habit that indicates the propriety of keeping the genus distinct 
from Gloxinia, with which, however, De Candolle unites it. All the species are natives of Brazil, 
whence the present was introduced to the Garden of the Horticultural Society in 1826." It 
flowered at Kew in June, 1845, is a stove plant, with short stout stems, on the summit of which 
its " opposite, spreading, dark-green, velvety, elliptico-ovate, broad " leaves are produced. And 
bearing " large, much-exserted, pale greenish-yellow, spotless " flowers, on short peduncles. Bot. 
Mag., 4212. 
Stachyta'rpheta arista^ta. u This fine plant was detected in South America, and probably 
at Santa Martha, by Von Rohr, and seems to have been known to no author but Vahl, who has 
given so accurate a description of it in his Enumeratio, that the species cannot be mistaken. It 
has again been found by our collector, Mr. Purdie, and sent from Santa Martha to the Royal 
Gardens, where in a moist stove it produced its handsome dense spikes of extremely rich deep, 
almost black purple flowers, in October, 1845. The flowers begin to expand from below, and 
continue opening upwards in succession throughout the whole length of the elongated spikes. No 
species of this genus yet cultivated is comparable to this for richness of colour." An herbaceous 
stemmed plant, with opposite branches and leaves, the latter ovate and acute. The very long 
flower-spikes are produced terminally, and are "clothed with numerous densely imbricated 
orbicular ovate leafy bracteas." Bot. Mag., 4211. 
Tacso'nia mollis'sima, Dr. Lindley states, is in some respects inferior to T. pinnatistipula. 
" On the other hand, its colour is more vivid, though not, as far as our observation has gone, 
