396 
CEPHALOTUS FOLL1CULARIS. 
place ; these two geraniums are better enti- 
tled to honours than some that have had 
them. Among the Pinks exhibited, the best 
were Bragg's George Glenny, Henbrey's 
Lady Hare. The best of the Fuchsias 
shown were Napoleon, Duchess of Suther- 
land, Delicata, JSTym])h, Empress, Countess 
of Corjiwallis. Most people were admiring 
Colossus and Cassandra, but the fault of the 
former is, that it is coarse and large ; the 
corolla, although dark when it first comes out, 
and forming something like a contrast, though 
slight, soon loses the distinction, and is an un- 
mitigated ugly subject ; Cassandra is ragged 
compared with several in the same style. Mr. 
Veitch's new Trop-s:olum is a decided 
novelty, and must be grown by all who pre- 
tend to cultivate any of the family. It is a 
large flower, not a close nor a round one like 
the ordinary nasturtium, nor is it compact 
like Lobbianum, but it is a brilliant scarlet, 
rather reminding one of a windmill with the 
outer half widened, — plenty to show off a gay 
and curious bloom when the plant is in per- 
fection, and affording a singular illustration of 
the extraordinary differences in the form of 
the various flowers. There can hardly be a 
greater contrast than might be found in a 
collection of these subjects : — tricolorum, or 
any of its larger varieties, red and black; 
brachyceras, bright yellow ; azurreum, blue; 
Lobbianum, dark orange ; the new one, scarlet; 
atrosanguineum, dark ; tuberosum, striped 
orange. We have still to urge upon the gar- 
deners the necessity of abandoning the shield- 
like trellises upon which they grow these and 
other climbers ; the style is nothing like 
nature, and we are surprised that they allow 
us, who can only boast of being an amateur, 
to dictate to them upon subjects that their 
own sense ought to render unnecessary. We 
have been years trying to cure them of this, 
and of propping up every sprig of a geranium ; 
and they give way so reluctantly that we 
succeed in showing the public the absurdity 
of a practice before the headstrong growers 
will see it. The public now ridicule the 
hundred props which the geranium growers 
are obliged to use to keep those miserable 
monster plants from hanging over the pot; 
and we have convinced ladies and gentlemen 
of the folly of allowing themselves to be 
charmed by any thing, however gay, if it is 
unnaturally grown, and incapable of supporting 
itself without sticks. As usual, when we, by 
pointing out the folly of encouraging such 
things, have disgusted the public with them, 
other writers pretend to have made the dis- 
covery as a new thing, and even the leader 
at a show, where this has been encouraged for 
years, has j ust found out that it is a wrong prac- 
tice, and proposes that it should be abandoned. 
CEPHALOTUS FOLLICULARIS. 
THE NEW HOLLAND PITCHER PLANT. 
Scarcely any subjects among the many 
vegetable productions which may fitly be classi- 
fied as natural curiosities, attract more notice 
than the pitcher plants, — plants which are 
furnished with very remarkable and unique 
urn-like appendages which botanists distinguish 
as ascidia, but which, in more familiar lan- 
guage, are called pitchers. Several genera of 
plants produce these appendages ; but the 
title of Pitcher-plants is more exclusively con- 
ferred on the species of Nepenthes, which are 
stove plants of a straggling habit, furnished 
with long narrow leaves, from the end of the 
more perfect of which the pitchers, or ascidia, 
are dependant : some of these produce stems 
from ten to twenty feet long, and bear very 
numerous pitchers. 
The Ceiihalotus follicidaris, represented 
in the annexed engraving, differs materially 
from these, although it bears very perfect as- 
cidia. It has however no other point of 
resemblance with those just referred to, being 
altogether of a distinct natural family, and 
having a totally different habit of growth. It 
is in fact regarded as an isolated species, 
having no direct affinity with any other 
known plant, and it is accordingly now sta- 
tioned in a separate natural order, alone con- 
stituted by itself, and of which the proper 
station and affinities are an unsettled point. 
The evidence at present seems to lean to- 
wards their being ranged in the crowfoot 
alliance. This small and unsettled natural 
order is named Cephalotacese. 
The plant is a small herbaceous perennial ; 
when out of flower it forms a close little 
tuft of two or three inches in height, from 
which the flower-stem springs, and forms an 
erect spike of a foot or more in height. The 
root is somewhat fusiform, often dividing at 
the upper part, from which is produced a 
cluster of elliptic lance-shaped, entire, thickish, 
nerveless leaves ; among which, but chiefly 
occupying the circumference, are placed the 
several beautiful and highly curious ascidia, 
attached to the plant by rather stout stalks 
fixed to the upper part of the pitcher, as it 
were at the back of each, where the lid also 
is fixed on to it. The form of the ascidia is 
ovate, or somewhat slipper shaped, and they 
are furnished with two lateral oblique wings, 
and one central one, the latter remarkably 
dilated at the margin, and all beautifully 
fringed with hairs ; they are green tinged 
