303 
. GESNERIA OBLONGATA. 
(oblong-flowered gesneria.) 
class. ordkr. 
DTD YN AM I A. ANGIOSPERMIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
GESNERIACEiE. 
Generic Character. — Vide vol. i. p. 224. 
Specific Character. — Plant villous. Stem (five feet high) shrubby, much branched ; branches ascending. 
Leaves (three to six inches long, one and a quarter to two and a quarter broad) opposite and decus- 
sating, petiolate, lanceolate, acuminate, neatly and subequally serrated, somewhat harshly pubescent and 
bright green above, white with soft tomentum below. Umbels four-flowered, villous, shorter than 
the leaves ; peduncle shorter than the petiole ; pedicels about two thirds of the length of the peduncles ; 
bractese two, opposite, lanceolate at the subdivision of the umbel. Flowers unilateral. Calyx with 
small, spreading, ovato-subulate segments. Corolla (one inch long, half an inch across) tubular, 
clavato-ventricose, dilated and somewhat fleshy at its base. Stem contracted, and after being dilated 
again slightly contracted at its mouth, villous on the outside, glabrous within ; limb spreading, lobes 
subequal, rounded, crenate. Stamens inserted into the base of the corolla, and rising to the throat; 
filaments pubescent,anthers divaricated at the base, where the connective is dilated, cucullate and fleshy ; 
fifth stamen rudimental. Pistil pubescent ; stigma minute, truncated ; style bent at its base, com- 
pressed ; germen more than half embedded in the adhering calyx, and surrounded at its free apex with 
five glands. Ovules numerous and minute. — Dr. Graham in Bot. Mag. t. 3725. 
Synonym. — Gesneria elongata ; var. fruticosa Bot. Mag. 3725. 
By far the greater portion of the Gesnerias cultivated in our collections have 
tuberous roots, and produce their flowers in a cluster or spike at the extremity of 
the stems. Their number and the duration of their flowering season are consequently 
limited. In the present species, the flowers appear at the axils of the leaves, and 
as the plant is shrubby, facility is thus afforded for illimitable production. 
But it is not in the above character that the superior merit of this plant alone 
resides. It manifests a striking disposition to branch laterally, and the leaves being 
likewise elegantly formed, and happily disposed, when well grown, the plant has a 
most symmetrical appearance. This quality, as most of our readers must be aware, 
is not common to its allies. In the regular structure of its flowers, it assimilates to 
G. elongata, and several others ; and Dr. Graham (see Bot. Magazine, as before 
quoted) considers it a mere variety of that species. Without disputing the pro- 
priety of this, or the resemblance our plant bears to G. elongata in some respects, 
we had previously adopted, and therefore here retain, the name by which it has 
long been known in the London nurseries, humbly conceiving that the points of 
difference are sufficient to constitute it a distinct species. 
In its capability of accommodation to variable temperature, this species is as far 
