MISCELLANEOUS. 
315 
Graminese, where the haulm is closed at every node, it is quite evident. Not so in other 
plants, which are either quite hollow in the centre, or filled with pith, or, rather, with 
medullary tissue. As it has been doubted lately whether pith deserves the highest rank, in 
consequence of being supposed the principal seat and cause of growth and vitality, and as 
it is now asserted, and I think with good reasons, too, that the internal side of the second 
bark, called the liber, is in reality this seat of vitality, so we shall now sooner become con- 
vinced that a node, deriving its food from the lower one, will receive this fluid in a more 
purified and filtered state, at the same time deriving benefit from the lower leaves, and 
that it therefore will be enabled to develope itself to greater perfection in nourishing its 
leaves and buds with a more digested sap. 
28. In this manner, as the raw and unprepared sap becomes digested and finer, the 
plant itself will gradually become more perfectly developed, till it arrives at the limits fixed 
by nature. We now see the leaves in their greatest perfection, and shall soon observe a 
new phenomenon, which implies that the period we observed till then is at an end, and a 
second one is approaching — the period of flowering. 
III. Transition to the Flowering period. 
29. This transition will arrive quicker or slower. In the last case we generally observe 
that the leaves begin to contract again, specially to lose all their different incisions of the 
margin, but expanding more or less towards their base, where they are connected with the 
stem ; at the same time we observe the space from one node to another becoming longer, or 
the stem at least to become much thinner than before. 
30. It has been observed, that abundant food hinders the flowering period, but, on the 
contrary, that a less plentiful, even scarce supply, will accelerate it. Hereby we see still 
clearer the action of the leaves, of which we treated in the preceding paragraphs. So 
long as there are raw fluids left to digest, so long the plant will continue to produce organs 
fit for digesting this food. 
(To be Continued.) 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
New and Rare Plants in Flower. Crowea 
stricta. Though the foliage and flowers of this 
scarce species, when contrasted with C. saligna and 
latifolia , were less distinct in appearance than they 
really are, the perpendicular habit of growth would 
immediately confer upon it a dissimilarity equally 
as striking as the specific appellation is appro- 
priate; but even in these appendages, a casual 
glance will detect some difference ; for while the 
shoots grow quite erect, are much more rigid, and 
somewhat ruddier than its congeners, the leaves 
are considerably shorter, and the florescence of a 
richer, brighter, and more uniform rosy red, suf- 
fused with glowing purple. The chief distinction, 
however, as it will be inferred, resides in the ten- 
dency to grow upright and the less irregular habitude 
assumed in comparison with C. saligna, with which, 
as it flowers, if anything, with greater freedom, it 
will be found a meet companion in every collection 
of New Holland plants. 
The subject of our present remarks was a thriving 
young specimen raised from seeds obtained from 
Australia by the Messrs. Henderson, who produced 
it at a meeting of the Horticultural Society held 
in Regent Street, on the 2nd ult.; and subsequently 
we were favoured with the inspection of it in fine 
condition of bloom, juxta-positioned with C. saligna 
in their nursery at Pineapple Place. 
Brassia maculata major. Blooming with all 
the freedom of the old spotted Brassia, we noticed 
this new species in a fine state in the rich collec- 
tion of Messrs. Loddiges, at Hackney ; and, as the 
flowers are considerably larger, the addition made 
to the specific distinction is well merited in the 
present instance. The ample lip of the species 
under notice is conspicuously distinguished by 
prominent dark-green spots on a ground-work 
of yellow green, and several of the long, narrow, 
sub-linear, greenish-yellow sepals and petals, mea- 
sured upwards of five inches in length. 
Epidendrum Jloribundum, var. A very vigorous 
growing plant, but apparently no more than a 
variety of the above, also came under our notice 
at the Hackney Nursery, exhibiting a numerously- 
branched terminal panicle nearly a foot in length, 
supported by a stout succulent-looking stem about 
18 inches high; and in addition to the habitude being 
more robust in all respects than that of the original 
many-flowered Epidendrum, the inflorescence is 
also somewhat different, a green tinge supplying 
the place of white apparent in the lip and petals 
of the latter. 
