THE BEGONIA. 
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THE BF.GONfA, 
ITS VARIETIES AND CULTURE. 
The Begonia is rather an extensive genus, 
composed principally of stove-plants. It is 
named after Michael Begon, a Frenchman, 
and promoter of botany, and belongs to the 
natural order Begoniacece, and to the Linnaean 
Monoecia Polyandria. It consists chiefly of 
succulent-stemmed plants, which are remark- 
able for the obliquity of the leaves at their 
base ; and, in the greater number of species, 
the flowers are very handsome. As a family, 
the culture of the Begonia has been a good 
deal neglected ; and yet, for those who have 
any taste for an assemblage of affined plants, 
the Begonia offers inducements which arc by 
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no means common. It is, doubtless, the fact 
of their being stove-plants, that has, at least 
partly, operated to produce the neglect into 
which they have fallen ; yet they are by no 
means chargeable with the expense which is 
usually understood to attach to the culture of 
Stove-plants. A small structure, with a tem- 
perature very slightly elevated above that of a 
green-house, would be sufficient to grow most, 
if not all, the species to pretty good perfec- 
tion, as their growth would be chiefly effected 
in the summer season, when advantage could 
bo taken of the heat of the sun ; and in the 
winter, when the chief portion of expense 
c o 
