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SINNINGIA YOUNGEANA. 
(DR. YOUNGe's SINNINGIA.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
DIDYNAMIA. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
GESNERIACEJE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx tubular, five-angled, -with leaf-like wings, five-toothed at the mouth. 
Corolla usually two-lipped, with an inflated throat. Rudiment of the fifth filament inserted on the 
surface of the base of the corolla. Nectary with five glands, alternate with the filaments. Fruit 
capsular. Capsule rather fleshy. 
Specific Character. — Plant perennial, suffruticose, growing from one foot to eighteen inches high, 
covered in all its parts, except the interior of the corolla, with long glandular hairs. Leaves 
opposite, petiolate, oblong, crenate, revolute at the margins, acute. Calyx of five equal ovate 
segments, rather irregularly disposed. Corolla with five obtuse subequal lobes, light purple on the 
outside, dark within, spotted towards the base of the throat, and smooth. 
It is a common but most mistaken opinion of gardeners and amateurs who 
devote little attention to botany, that no plants can, by hybridization, be induced 
to mingle their particular properties, unless belonging to the same genus. The 
fallacy of this notion is clearly proved in numberless instances, and the more 
inquisitive culturists are now aware that any two of the majority of plants 
associated in one Natural Order, will, if impregnated with each other, yield a 
produce intermediate between the parents, and partaking of both their natures. 
Still, it must not be imagined that this rule holds good universally ; for in no case 
will it be found to issue in the wished-for results, except where the plants brought 
into connexion have a manifest affinity of habitude. 
As a convincing example of the possibility of commingling the individual traits 
of species systematically placed beneath related genera, the superior Sinningia, of 
which a figure is affixed, may be most aptly adduced. It was originally generated 
by the impregnation of blossoms of Sinningia velutina, with the pollen from 
flowers of Gloxinia speciosa. Advantage has thus been taken of a fact too little 
known, to combine the subshrubby character of the Sinningia with the splendid 
purple colour of the flowers of a Gloxinia. The circumstance and its consequences 
are particularly gratifying, and should be carefully treasured in the cultivator s 
