18 
NEW AUCUBAS. 
STAURANTHERA GRANDIFLORA. 
A charming stove plant recently introduced from Moulmein, with remarlcahly largo glabrous 
leaves, oblong, and singularly inequilateral ; flowers light blue with bright yellow throat, very freely 
produced even on small plants. 
Price 10s. 6(f. and 16s. each. 
STEVENSONIA SECHELLARUM. 
syn. “ Phoenicophorium sechellarum.” 
A rare and heautiful Palm from the Island of Seychelles. Its bilobod leaves are dark green 
prettily maculated with orange, and the stems and leaf-stalks bristle with long needle-shaped spines. 
Price 63s. each. 
NEW AUCUBAS. 
These new hardy evergi'een shrubs are most desii-able novelties, indeed they may be looked 
upon as the most permanently useful introductions of modern times ; many have been the novelties 
recently added to our selections from Japan, but for dui'able importance none of them come up to 
these plants, and for this reason : the common Aucuba is a shrub that grows and thrives better in 
towns and cities than any other evergreen, it thrives vigorously where everything else dies, as some 
of the gardens of London can testify ; to us, however, it has hitherto been a fruitless shrub, but now 
we have the male foim of this plant, and as soon as it becomes efficiently circulated all the Aucubas 
will be covered with largo hunches of berries about four times the size of those of the common 
Holly, and of the brightest glossy red colour ; this can now be seen, at present in perfection at my 
Establishment, as well as the male and female plants hereafter named. 
Nothing in the way of hardy evergreen shrubs will at all compare with Aucubas when laden 
with their coral-like red berries. 
As some little misunderstanding exists about Aucubas, perhaps it may he as well to state that the 
Aucuba is a dioecious plant, that is to say, some of its individuals produce only male, and others only 
female flowers, and that some eighty years ago the ordinary Aucuba was introduced from Japan, 
but the plant or plants so introduced happened to he females ; by propagation the whole stock in 
Europe sprang from the original introduction, and Japan from that time being a scaled country the 
male plant could not be obtained. To the celebrated Chinese and Japanese traveller and collector, 
Mr. Eobert Fortune, is due the merit of introducing the first male plants with which wo are 
acquainted. Lately however, there have been several most important and distinct varieties introduced 
by Dr. Van Siebold, including male and female kinds, with plain green unspotted leaves ; also others 
in both sexes having blotched and variegated foliage. 
The following extract is from the Gardeners’ Chronicle, May 6th, I860, page 416: — “ The now 
Aucubas are at present one of the chief attractions hero ; the collection is a very remarkable one, 
and no doubt destined to work no small improvement in our shrubberies. There ore half-a-dozen 
well-blotched variegated varieties, several with the leaf, except a narrow margin of green, of a clear 
lemon yellow ; and free and excellent looking varieties without any variegation. These I am inclined 
to think will prove most valuable, especially for towns, for it is reasonable to expect that they should 
thrive -where the variegated form does ‘ pretty well.’ Of these Aucuba japonica macrophylla is a fine 
plant, with leaves of a lighter green than its very dark-hued neighbour, latifolia, which has also very 
largo leaves, and promises to make another noble shrub ; maculata is a very fine spotted variety, with 
broad leaves, quite flat ; eUgantmima is a great leaved variety, with one immense blotch of clear 
yellow, and the remaining green portion lightly dappled over with small yellow spots ; elegans is rather 
deeply serrated, with a broad centre of yellow and dark green margin ; sulphurea has the variegation 
suffused all ever the leaf, and quite distinct from the other strikingly-rnarkcd kinds ; marginata has 
the variegation round the leaf margins ; and oblonga is another green form, almost sure to make a 
noble shrub. The Himalayan, the Japan normal male and female forms, and other Aucubas, aU 
