INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY. 
23 
not always consonant with that immediate suc- 
cess in cultivation, whicli in the case of new 
and very beautiful plants it is generally a pri- 
mary object to secure. 
- Tlie species is cultivated in the Royal garden 
at Kew, where it had been received frum Mr. 
M'Koy, of Liege, in Belgium. " It is very 
unlike any species yet figured or described, as 
far as we can learn, and it may possibly be a 
hybrid, one of whose parents may he Passi- 
jiora alata, judging from the peculiar colour 
of the sepals and petals, while the involucre 
more I'esembles t\\&to? P. quadrangular is, but 
the slender terete stem is at variance with both." 
Tlius writes Sir W. Hooker in the Botanical 
Magazine, and our engraving is prepared from 
a beautiful coloured drawing published in that 
excellent work. At Kew the plant has been 
grown in the stove. 
The whole habit of this plant is graceful, and 
besides this its tlowers are pre-eminently beau- 
tiful ; their colours are red and white, the con- 
trast between which is striking. It is, of 
course, like the rest of its family, a climber, 
though of much less vigorous growth than 
many others ; in fact, its growth is in all re- 
spects moderate. The stem is slender and 
rounded, or, as it is expressed in botanical 
language, terete ; the leaves ai-e borne alter- 
nately on the stem, to which they are attached 
by short stalks which bear glands on their 
surface ; in form they are acutely egg-shaped, 
that is, ovate, and sharply-pointed, and the mar- 
gin is quite entire. At the base of the leaf-stalk 
is situated a pair of small leaves, which are 
called stipules ; they are of a narrowly ovate 
figure and also quite entire on the mai'gin. 
From the axils of the leaves both tendrils 
and blossoms are produced, the flowers being 
usually, if not always, solitary. On the flower- 
stalk, which is longer than the leaf-stalk, and 
just below the calyx, is an involucre of three 
broad bluntish ovate membranous leaves which 
support the blossoms. Of the latter, the calyx 
and corolla, that is, the sepals and petals, are 
alike or nearly so, the chief difference being 
that the segments of the calyx have each on 
their back just at the tip a small hooked 
mucro ; the sepals and petals, of which there 
are five each, form as it were one series of 
oblong obtuse rays, measuring from the cen- 
tre about an inch and a half. In cases where 
the calyx and corolla are thus conformable, it 
is usual to call the conjoined parts the peri- 
anth ; and in this case the perianth measures 
about three inches in diameter ; its colour is 
a bright clear red. Within this is the crown, 
or the filamentous crown as it is called, con- 
sisting of a ray of thread-like bodies, or fila- 
ments, familiar to every one in the common 
passion-flower from their variegation of blue 
and white ; in this kind the filaments are 
white, and are shorter than the perianth, which 
thus forms an entire background to them. 
The most beautiful eflect i*esults from this 
simple and complete contrast of red and white 
in the flower. The filaments just alluded to, 
are arranged in the fiower in four series. The 
blossoms are produced in May. 
This species may be grown either in a pot, 
or planted out against a pillar or to cover a 
trellis. If the former, however, the pot should 
be large, or the roots will not acquire nourish- 
ment enough to result in the development of a 
profusion of vigorous blossoms. It will, no 
doubt, attain its greatest perfection planted 
out into good soil, in a hot-house, where its 
branches could be trained around a pillar, or 
under the roof, or over any trellis, freely ex- 
posed to the light. The soil most proper for 
it would be a compost of equal parts turfy 
loam and peat, mixed with a small proportion 
of quarter-inch broken bones, about half a 
peck to a bushel of soil ; sand may be added as 
requisite, according to the texture of the staple 
soil ; the mass should be made porous enough 
to allow the water to pass freely away. The 
situation in which such plants best display 
themselves, are on wires or trellises under the 
roof, to which the main stems should be se- 
cured, the lateral branches being suffered to 
hang dependent or in festoons without any 
formal constraint. In such cases it is neces- 
sary to have recourse to an annual pruning to 
reduce the plant to an orderly condition, and 
this pruning should be carried out in the winter 
season, when a condition of rest should be 
induced by a reduction of the heat and mois- 
ture applied. "With the increase of the light 
as the winter bi-eaks away, more heat and 
moisture may be again supplied, and this will 
induce renewed vigorous growth, the prelude 
to a healthy crop of blossoms. 
All these plants may be increased by cut- 
tings of the half-ripened shoots planted in sand, 
and placed in a close moist atmosphere, and 
where there is some warmth afibrded to the 
soil. 
INTRODUCTION TO BOTANY."^ 
Dr. Lindley's several works on Botany 
are among the best which are to be met with 
in the English Language. This arises from 
two causes in combination, or, in other words, 
from a keen perception and knowledge of the 
subject on the part of the author, added to an 
off-hand and understandable enunciation. In 
consequence of this, we get a clear expression 
* An Introduction to Botany. By John Lindley. 
Ph. D. F.Iv.S. Professor of Botany in University Col- 
lege, London, &c. Fourtii Edition. London : Long- 
man & Co. 
