500 
HOVEA CELSII, AND ITS CULTURE. 
and, as well as peduncles covered, with hairs, 
as on the stem ; bracteas ovate-acuminate ; 
seeds longitudinally ribbed. Perennial ? — 
Flowers in August and September. Allied to 
H. murorum and II. maculatum. Found by- 
Mr. J. Bladon of Pont-y-pool, growing in 
woods and hedge banks ; very rarely in open 
ground. 
Linaria siipina (Desfontaines). — This plant, 
described by Mr. Babington, in llanual of 
jBritisk Botany, as a true native, found at 
Catdown quarries, Plymouth, by Mr. Keys, is 
ascertained to be an accidental introduction, 
now becoming naturalized. 
3Ialva vertlcillata (Linn.) — " Stem erect ; 
leaves cordate, rather orbicular, bluntly angu- 
lar; flowers axillary, glomerate, sessile; calyxes 
scabrous, rather inflated ; carpels smoothish." 
Stem one to two feet. Flowers small, white, 
purplish at the tip, almost sessile. Annual. 
Flowers in June and July. (China : intro- 
duced to gardens in 1683.) A plant very 
nearly allied to M. crisjm, of which it is pos- 
sibly the type, has been determined (with but 
slight doubt) to be this species. Found by 
Mr. J. Motley, in corn-fields at Llanelly, 
Glamorganshire, in 1845; plentifully in three 
fields. Not indigenous. 
PJudaris paradoxa (Linna?us). — " Panicle 
subspicate, cylindrical ; glumes of perfect 
flowers acuminate, of rudimentary flowers pra> 
morse." Intermediate flowers hermaphrodite, 
the rest imperfect. Annual. Flowers in July. 
This plant was found by Mr. J. Hussey, in 
July 1847, in a field near Swanage, Dorset- 
shire. Reported as P. utriculata in London 
Journal of Botany, but determined by Mr. 
H. C. Watson to be P. paradoxa. 
Poly gala depressa (Wenderoth). — " Stems 
depressed, filiform, branched, leafy ; lower 
leaves mostly crowded, oblong or obovate- 
elliptical, obtuse, upper leaves lanceolate, scat- 
tei-ed ; racemes short, few flowered ; flowers 
crested, lateral sepals (wings) oblong-obovate, 
their lateral nerves reticulate, anastomosing 
with an oblique branch of the central nerve." 
Perennial. Flowers in May and June. Very 
near P. vulgaris and P. amara. Found by 
Dr. Bromfield on Bleak Down, Isle of Wight, 
in May 1 846. It agrees also with P. serpyl- 
lacea (Weihe). 
Pyrola maritima (Kenyon). — Probably a 
variety of P. rotund/folia, distinguished by 
its size, the form and length of the sepals, and 
length of the stamens. Found by Mr. Kenyon 
in Lancashire. 
Simethis bicolor (Kunth). — Anthericum pla- 
nifolium (Vandelli). — "Leaves flat; filaments 
woolly." Roots fascicled, club-shaped ; stem 
one foot, erect, terminated by a many-flowered 
corymbose raceme ; leaves radical, grass-like, 
subcarinate ; flowers solitary, erect, on long 
pedicels, white tinged with purple externally ; 
pedicels with a bract at the base. Perennial. 
Flowers in July. The Anther icicm planifolium, 
and Bulbine planifolia of older authors, found 
by Miss C. Wilkins growing amongst heath 
and furze in a fir plantation about two miles 
from Bourne, in July 1847. 
HOVEA CELSII, AND ITS CULTURE. 
Thejre is no plant so well repays the 
extraordinary care required in counteracting 
its bad habit as Hovea Celsii. Its brilliant blue 
butterfly-shaped flowers, closely investing its 
stem, and set off by the protruding green leaves, 
form an object of peculiar interest, and it 
requires no little pains and skill to overcome 
its natural tendency to lanky and uncouth 
growth. There are several points to which 
the cultivator must direct his attention, but 
which are lost sight of by the ordinary gar- 
dener. The plant grows rapidly and long 
in its shoots ; and we once saw one of the 
most beautiful dwarf plants — as it appeared to 
the casual observer — win a prize against a much 
better grown specimen, and the judges were 
duped by what in some cases would be called 
a fraud. The dwarf plant was the head of a 
tall gauky standard, and the stem had been 
coiled round the inside of a large pot, and so 
pegged down as to leave nothing but the head 
above the soil ; and this fraud succeeded in con- 
sequence of the judges being ignorant of its 
nature, and the handsome appearance of the 
plant, while common gardeners, who pretended 
to no particular knowledge of plants, had their 
suspicions awakened by the extraordinary 
dwarfness of a plant hitherto seen only on a 
long stem. They did not look for a stem 
pegged down round a pot, and the head 
turned up in the centre ; they searched, ex- 
pecting to find that it was the head of a plant 
stuck into a pot : deception they knew there 
must be, but the nature of it was only discerned 
in seeking for another kind of fraud. How- 
ever, ugly as is the natural growth of the 
Hovea, its habit is to be conquered, and its 
growth controlled. We begin with a struck 
cutting, which we will pot into the size called 
sixty, perhaps two and a half to three inches 
across, in soil composed of the loam of rotted 
turves two parts, peat-earth one part, no dung 
of any kind, there being sufficient vegetable 
mould to answer all the purposes of richness 
in rotted turves, such as are taken from a pas- 
ture to lay down for lawns. In this compost, 
rubbed through a coarse sieve, is the cutting 
to be placed in the centre of the pot, which 
must be well drained with coarse moss or 
crocks. We shall presume the cutting to be 
two inches above the soil, which should only 
j ust cover the upper part of the root. As soon 
as the top of the cutting moves, to show it is 
