175 
AZALEA INDICA; var. VARIEGATA. 
(iNDIAN AZALEA ; VARIEGATED-FLOWERED VARIETY.) 
CLASS. ORDER. 
PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDER, 
ERICACEAE. 
Generic Character. — Vide v oL i. p. 126. Specific Character.- — Vide Vol. ii. p. 145. 
Var. variegata. Flowers very large, pale pink, irregularly variegated with white round the margins. 
All who find leisure to be present at floricultural exhibitions in the spring of 
the year, or to visit the neighbouring nurseries, are aware to what perfection the 
beautiful greenhouse Azaleas are now reared by the culturist's skill, and how 
gaudy a show the more specious- coloured kinds make, as well as what a delightful 
contrast they form to the spotless white of other and similarly prolific sorts. Their 
graceful character, too, is in such felicitous opposition to some of the more rigid and 
less branching hardy varieties, that we regard them with much greater pleasure 
after the comparison. Among the hardy shrubs usually denominated Ghent 
Azaleas, there are a few, nevertheless, that will not be disparaged by association 
with the choicest of their greenhouse congeners ; for we noticed in several collections 
this year plants with an admirable improvement in their habit, and so thickly 
covered with flame-coloured flowers as to look like huge masses of living fire. 
What principally distinguishes the tender sorts with regard to habit is the 
pleasing curvature and partial pendency of their branches, which are, besides, 
developed completely down to their base, thus hiding the stems, and rendering the 
outline of the whole more symmetrical. The colour of their blossoms is also more 
delicate, and generally either pink or purple, or some intermediate tint. From the 
facility with which their properties are mixed both with the species and varieties 
that have a real generic affinity to them, and as much so with the members of the 
genus Rhododendron, there are already many hybrids in Britain. Still, in none of 
these have we yet met with the interesting variegation of hue which marks 
A. indica variegata. 
It would seem altogether most plausible to suppose that this charming variety 
had been raised from a cross-impregnation of one of the pinkish-red flowering sorts 
