TROP.EOLTJM SPECIOSUM. 
381 
TEOP^OLUM SPECIOSUM. 
(Pceppig.) 
THE BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CHESS. 
The family of Indian cresses is in high 
favour in our gardens. About a score species 
are known and cultivated; and if in comparison 
some of these may be held — as they rightfully 
are — to be superior in beauty to others of 
their congeners, on the other hand, there is 
not a known species which can be regarded 
as anything else than an epitome of graceful- 
ness and elegance. Even the common kind, 
Tropceolum majus,ihe nasturtium of the kitchen 
garden, is a gorgeous plant when clothed with 
bloom, as it is during great part of the sum- 
mer. Another annual and smaller, though 
similar kind, T. minus, is equally beautiful, 
and still more elegant. The yellow-fringed 
annual kind, T. aduncum, known commonly 
in gardens as the canary-flower (and hence, 
erroneously called T. canariensis), is one of 
the gayest of rapid growing summer climbers. 
Then everybody who knows anything of orna- 
mental greenhouse plants is familiar with the 
perennial, or tuberous-rooted kinds which are 
usually cultivated there in pots, and their 
branches trained over ornamental trellises : 
there is T. tricolor with its horn-like flowers 
of scarlet, orange, and black ; T. brachyceras, 
with yellow blossoms, and T. azureum, with 
flowers of a soft bluish tint ; these are each of 
slender habit, with deeply divided leaves. 
Rather more vigorous is the T. Moritzianum, 
which has elegant red and orange flowers ; 
and still more robust is an eatable-rooted kind 
— (most, if not all, are so employed by the 
South Americans of their native countries) — 
called T. tuberosum, which produces roots as 
large as ordinary sized potatoes, but requires 
to be planted in gravel, and placed in a hot 
sunny exposure to cause it to develop its 
floral beauty. 
The structure of the flowers of TropaBolums 
is somewhat singular. They have a calyx or 
outer covering of five segments, and this part 
is lengthened behind into a more or less de- 
veloped organ which is called the spur ; within 
the calyx is a corolla of five petals, and, of 
course, within these, the anthers and pistil. 
Owing to a remarkable difference in the de- 
gree of development in the calyx, the corolla 
and the spur, there is, to a superficial ob- 
server, perhaps, as much diversity in the 
appearance of the flowers of different species 
of the genus as can be found in any family of 
the same extent. In the common garden nas- 
turtium, for example, the calyx and spur are 
but moderately developed, whilst the petals 
being highly developed, a large wide open 
blossom is the result; and the spur is not 
very obvious except on a side view. In the 
case of T. brachyceras and T. azureum, the 
spur is still less developed compared with the 
size of the petals. In T. tricolor, on the 
other hand, neither calyx nor petals are very 
evident, but the spur is highly developed, and 
appears to constitute the entire blossom : in 
this case, an entirely different appearance is 
produced. So also in the case of T. aduncum, 
in which, while the spur is present and 
hooked, the two upper petals are large and 
conspicuous, the three lower ones being so 
small and narrow as to be almost unobserved. 
This diversity of appearance, no doubt, forms 
a recommendation additional to their intrinsic 
beauty. 
Trojpmolum speciosum is the most recent 
