CUPHEA PLATYCENTRA. 
(Broad-Centred Cuphea,) 
Class. Order. 
DODECANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
LYTHRACEjE. 
Generic Character — Calyx tubular, gibbose at the 
base on the upper side ; limb wide, twelve-toothed, with 
six of the teeth erect, and the other 6ix small, or nearly 
obsolete, rising from the sinuses of the inner teeth. 
Petals six or seven, unequal. Stamens eleven to four- 
teen, rarely 6ix or 6even, unequal, inserted in the 
throat of the calyx. Gland under the ovarium thick. 
Style filiform. Stigma simple, or rather bifid. Capsule 
membranous, covered by the calyx, one or two-celled, 
at length cleft by the deflexed placenta as well as the 
calyx. Seeds nearly orbicular, compressed, wingless. 
— Don's Gard. and Botany. 
Specifjc Character. — Plant a dwarf evergreen 
shrub. Branches compressed when full-grown. Leaves 
petiolated, ovate, acuminate, slightly scabrous, narrow 
at the base. Pedicels winged, and somewhat longer 
than the petioles. Calyx scarlet, elongate, six-toothed. 
Spur dilated. Petals wanting. Stamens all quite 
smooth.— Benth. 
This Cuphea was named and described many years ago by Mr. Bentham, in 
" Plants Hartwegiana" from dried specimens collected in Mexico, but until last 
year it has been a stranger to our gardens, which possess it through seeds acciden- 
tally imported with Mexican Orchids, and which sprang up in the establishment of 
J. Anderson, Esq., the Holme, Regent's Park. 
As an excellent and the best addition that has lately been made to our stock of 
flower-garden plants, Cuphea platycentra is very valuable. Its flowers are borne all 
over the plant by the young branches and branchlets, and are not clustered together 
in a way that produces a glare of beauty ; from which circumstance it may not appear 
so suitable for the purpose in question as it really is. Where a particularly showy 
mass of bloom is required, superior things with flowers of a like colour, it is not 
disputed, may be found ; but C. platycentra will not lose by comparison with any 
plant, as far as suitable habitude and profuse long-continued production of pretty 
inflorescence is concerned. We have too many parterre plants, gay and beautiful 
enough with flowers for a while, but almost as transitory as gay, and hence too often 
leaving beds they are placed to occupy nearly devoid of interest, when they should 
be most interesting. Cuphea platycentra is quite appropriate for a small or a large 
bed, or at least can be rendered so. Its disposition is to form long rather than 
many shoots ; therefore, when left more to itself, it will be most fit for a large mass ; 
and when a small one of it is desired, frequent stopping its branches must be freely 
