NEW AND BEAUTIFUL PLANTS. 
223 
NEW AND BEAUTIFUL PLANTS FIGURED IN THE BOTANICAL 
PERIODICALS. 
Alloplectus capitatus. Capitate Alloplectus. A 
very beautiful plant, both in foliage and flowers ; the 
flowers are of a large size, each leaf measuring from 10 
inches to 1 foot in length, of the richest possible velvety 
or silky hue ; the upper side deep-green, verging to yellow, 
the under side purplish, while the stem and petioles, 
peduncles, and calyxes, are of a rich crimson blood 
colour. It is a stove plant requiring a warm moist 
situation, and to be potted in a loose peat soil, and care- 
fully watered during winter. It is supposed to be a 
native of tropical America, and its flowering season is 
March and April. — Bot. Mag., 4452. 
Amherstia nobilis. Splendid Amherstia. Ever 
since the publication of this plant in Dr. Wallich’s 
Plantce Asiaticce Rariores, the greatest desire has been 
felt by cultivators in Europe to possess it. His Grace 
the Duke of Devonshire had the honour of importing 
the first living plant in 1837, through the medium of 
his collector Mr. Gibson, and this is become a noble and 
vigorously growing specimen in the stove at Chatsworth, 
but has not yet shown any signs of flowering. Lord 
Hardinge, whilst Governor General of the East Indies, 
presented a fine plant to Mrs. Lawrence of Ealing Park, 
Middlesex, under whose management it flowered in 
April, 1849, when only 11 feet high. It should be 
potted in a mixture of peat and loam ; be encouraged 
with a little bottom heat to its roots, and be carefully 
shaded from the hot rays of the sun. Dr. Wallich’s 
account of his first notice and discovery of this magni- 
ficent tree is as follows . — “ The first notice I had of the 
existence of this magnificent tree was at Rangoon, in 
August, 1826, when Mr. Crawford favoured me with 
some dried unopened flowers, and a leaf of it, with 
the information that he had gathered it in a garden 
belonging to a monastery, around the hill at Kogun, on 
the Saluen River, in the province of Martaban, where 
they appeared too beautiful to be passed unobserved even 
by the uninitiated in Botany. Handfulls of the flowers 
were found as offerings in the caves, before the images 
of Buddha.” In March, 1827, Dr. Wallich accompanied 
the British Envoy to Ava, and in his official report of a 
journey on the River Saluen, in order to examine the 
site and capabilities of the Teak forests in that direction, 
he thus writes : “ In about an hour I came to a decayed 
Kioum (a sort of Monastery), close to the large hill of 
Kogun, distant about 2 miles from the right bank of the 
river, and 27 from the town of Martaban. I had been 
prepared to find a tree growing here, of which an account 
had been communicated to me by Mr. Crawford, and 
which I had been fortunate enough to meet with for the 
first time a week ago at Martaban. Nor was I disappointed. 
There were two individuals of this tree here ; the largest 
about 40 feet high, with a girth, at 3 feet above the 
base, of 6 feet, stood close to the cave; the other was 
smaller, and overhung an old square reservoir of water, 
lined with bricks and stones. They were profusely 
ornamented with pendulous racemes of large vermilion- 
coloured blossoms, forming superb objects, unequalled 
in the flora of the East Indies, and I presume, not sur- 
passed in magnificence and elegance in any part of the 
world. The Birman name is Toha. Neither the people 
here, nor at Martaban, could give me any distinct 
account of its native place of growth ; but there is little 
doubt that it belongs to the forests of this province.” — 
Bot. Mag., 4453. 
Cyrtochilum citrinum. Lemon-coloured Cyr- 
tochilum. This ha$ a good deal the habit of the 
Cyrtochilum filipe6, but the scape is less slender, the 
flowers larger, ofan uniform pale-yellow, or lemon-colour, 
with a different shaped lip, and a prominent and very 
conspicuous tooth on each side of the short column. It 
was imported from Central America, and thrives in the 
cool division of the Orchid house, placed in a basket of 
loose turfy peat and moss, and suspended from the roof. 
—Bot. Mag., 4454. [It is nothing but Oncidium 
concolorJ] 
Epimedium pinnatum. Pinnate-leaved Epimedium. 
A most lovely little hardy herbaceous plant with flowers 
in form, and size, and colour, resembling some Helian- 
themums, but, when they are inspected, the curious struc- 
ture of an Epimedium may be detected. It is a native 
of the shady mountain woods in Gilan, a province of 
Persia, where it was first detected by Hablitz. It has 
since been found in the Caucasian region, on Mount 
Talusch, between Lenkoran and Sunant, at an elevation 
of 2400 feet above the level of the sea. — Bot. Mag., 
4456. 
Mormodes lentiginosa. Freckled Mormodes. 
A new and very remarkable species of Mormodes, ob- 
tained from Central America, and flowered in the col- 
lection of Mrs. Lawrence. It should be potted in loose 
turfy peat ; in winter it remains in a state of rest, and 
must then be kept in a moderately warm and rather dry 
stove, giving it little or no water. — Bot. Mag., 4455. 
Zieria macrophylla. Large-leaved Zieria. This 
is a much handsomer species than the old Zieria 
lanceolata. Mr. Allan Cunningham says it attains in 
its native country a height of from 14 to 16 feet, and the 
leaves and the flowers are the largest of the genus. It 
is a native of Van Diemen’s Land, in shady ravines and 
mountain creeks, and is known in the colony by the 
name of Stink-wood. — Bot. Mag., 4451. 
