CUPHEA PLATYCENTRA. 
(Broad-Centred Cuphea.) 
Class. 
DODECANDRXA. 
Natural Order. 
LY THRACE M. 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
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 six small, or nearly 
obsolete, rising from the sinuses of the inner teeth. 
Petals six or seven, unequal. Stamens eleven to four- 
teen, rarely six or seven, 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 
l calyx. Seeds nearly orbicular, compressed, wingless. 
— Don's Gard. and Botany. 
Specific 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. Bentliam, in 
Plantes Hartwegiance,” from dried specimens collected in Mexico, but until last 
fear 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 
b Anderson, Esq., the Holme, Regent’s Park, 
As an excellent and the best addition that has lately been made to our stock of 
lower-garden plants, Cuphea platycentra is very valuable. Its flowers are borne all 
>ver the plant by the young branches and branchlets, and are not clustered together 
n a way that produces a glare of beauty ; from which circumstance it may not appear 
:o suitable for the purpose in question as it really is. Where a particularly showy 
nass of bloom is required, superior things with flowers of a like colour, it is not 
iisputed, may be found ; but C. platycentra will not lose by comparison with any 
)lant, as far as suitable habitude and profuse long-continued production of pretty 
q florescence is concerned. We have too many parterre plants, gay and beautiful 
nough with flowers for a while, but almost as transitory as gay, and hence too often 
saving beds they are placed to occupy nearly devoid of interest, when they should 
e most interesting. Cuphea \ platycentra is quite appropriate for a small or a large 
ed, or at least can be rendered so. Its disposition is to form long rather than 
lany shoots ; therefore, when left more to itself, it will be most fit for a large mass ; 
nd when a small one of it is desired, frequent stopping its branches must be freely 
