BEGONIA NITIDA. 
(Shining-leaved Begonia.) 
Class. Order. 
MONCECIA. POLYANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
BEGONIACEiE. 
Generic Character.— Male flowers.*- Calyx want- 
ing. Corolla polypetalous ; petals commonly four, 
unequal. Female flowers.— Calyx wanting. Corolla 
with from four to nine petals, generally unequal. Styles 
three, bifid. Capsule triquetrous, winged, three-celled, 
many- seeded. 
Specific Character.— Plant, a tall shrub. Leaves 
oblique, ovate, acute, obsoletely crenated, shining. 
Stipules oblong, cuspidate, keeled. Male flowers with 
four petals ; two roundish, two oblong, and smaller. 
Female flowers with five equal petals. Capsule with a 
large wing. 
Synonymes.— B. obliqua, B. purpurea, B. minor. 
It affords us much gratification to perceive that this family is in some degree 
engaging the attention it is worthy of; but we have not yet much cause to exult, so 
little is the worth of its members appreciated, compared with what it ought to be. 
No genus of plants, as a whole, deserves more extensively to be grown ; distinguished 
as they are by so great a diversity of character, and real beauty, and flowering freely in 
the extreme : some species do so nearly always, and no portion of the year is unen- 
livened by the blossoms of some of them. And again, they are so easily cultivated ; 
several kinds grow and flower very freely in the greenhouse, though all are benefited 
by a warmer temperature, and many necessarily require it. 
" The Botanical Magazine " (from which our specific character is borrowed) 
informs us that B, nitida was received at Kew from Dr. W. Brown, in 1779 : it is a 
native of Jamaica, and one of the best of the light-flowering species ; grows freely and 
erect, becoming a large bush, and bearing panicles of pinkish-white flowers in pro- 
fusion all summer : these contrasting with the rather large, oblique, shining leaves, 
have a fine effect. 
The ease with which Begonias flourish and produce bloom under any kind of 
treatment, though rendering them plants which all may cultivate with success, has led 
(in conjunction, probably, with the succulency of their nature preventing their being 
regarded in any other light than as objects of ornament) to their merits being lost 
sight of. No plants are more susceptible of improvement by good culture than the 
family of which the one under consideration is a member : a plant of B. coccinea 
which recently came under our observation, enjoying in a high degree the benefit of 
