CHEMISTRY OF HORTICULTURE. 
195 
GARDENIA SHERBOURNHE. (Mrs. Sherbourne’s Gardenia.) 
Class, Pentandria. Order, Monogynia. Nat. Order , Cinchonace^e. (Cinchonads, Veg. Kingd. 
Generic Character.— Calyx with an ovate, usually 
ribbed tube, and a tubular truncate, toothed, cleft, or parted 
limb. Corolla funnel-shaped, or salver-shaped, having the 
tube much longer than the calyx, and the limb twisted in 
aestivation, but afterwards spreading from five to nine, 
parted. Anthers five to nine, linear, almost sessile in the 
throat of the corolla or exserted. Stigma clavate, bifid, or 
bidentate ; lobes thick, erect. Ovary one-celled, half 
divided by two to five incomplete dissepiments. Berry 
fleshy, crowned by the calyx, chartaceous or nucleate 
inside, incompletely two to five-celled. Seeds minute, im- 
mersed in the fleshy parietal placentas. Embryo album inous. 
Specific Character — Plant an evergreen shrub, with a 
climbing habit. Branches round, smooth. Leaves three 
inches or more long, elliptical-ovate, coriaceous. Petioles 
rounded. Stipules oblong, large, deciduous. Peduncles 
solitary, clothed with small bracts, one-flowered, produced 
in the axils of the leaves. Calyx large, campanulate ; lobes 
five, wedge-shaped. Corolla campanulate, white, tinged 
with deep-red within ; limb spreading, five-lobed ; lobes 
rounded. Stamens inserted above the middle of the tube. 
Authorities and Synonymes. — Gardenia, Be Candolle. 
Gardenia Sherbournise, Hooker in Bot. Mag., 4044. 
Our drawing of this rare and new species of Gardenia was made in the stove of Messrs- 
Knight and Perry, Nurserymen, Chelsea, in October, 1847. 
The plant is a native of Sierra Leone, where it is stated by Mr. Whitfield, its discoverer, 
to produce an agreeable tasted fruit, and whence it was received originally by Mrs. Sher- 
bourne, of Hurst House, Prescott, Lancashire, and where it flowered for the first time in 
June, 1843. 
It requires similar treatment to the other tender Gardenias, namely, a soil composed 
of rough peat, leaf-mould, and silver sand, in nearly equal proportions ; well drain the pots, 
and lay a little moss over the potsherds to prevent the compost from mixing with the 
drainage. Give a high temperature in the growing season, with abundance of atmospheric 
moisture, and a good supply of water at the roots ; and a free growth and abundance of 
bloom may be expected. 
The genus is named in honour of Alexander Garden, M. D., of Charlestown, Carolina, 
a botanist in the days of Linnaeus. 
CHEMISTRY OF HORTICULTURE. 
(Continued from Page 166.) 
By John Towers , Esq. 
Atmosphere — Atmospheric air. In former articles the two gases that constitute the 
volume of respirable air (oxygen and nitrogen, or azote), have passed under notice. It 
remains, however, to investigate the experiments of those chemical philosophers, which 
have led to the conclusion that the atmosphere in its natural condition, pure and free 
from every deleterious admixture, is always composed of four materials, two of which, 
are always subject to occasional variations. The average results of many experimental 
researches, have been pretty accurately determined ; they show the presence in 100 parts, of 
By measure. 
By weight. 
Nitrogen Gas ^ 
\ 77*50 
75-55 , 
\ constant. 
Oxygen 
[ 21*00 
23-32 l 
Carbonic Acid ..... j 
> 0'08 
0-10 j 
> variable. 
Watery Yapour \ 
| 1-42 
1-03 J 
> 
100-00 
100-00 
The two last variable components shall in due time be examined; but we must 
previously appeal to authorities. 
Lavoisier, by patient attention to a thrice-repeated experiment (each of twelve 
days’ duration), on mercury exposed at a boiling heat to the influence of air in close 
vessels, effected the analysis of that air, and determined that 27 parts of weight out of 
