Plate 53. 
MARANTA MAKOYANA. 
Among wliat are ordinarily called stove-foliaged plants there is no class more generally 
grown than the Marantas, and of late years many remarkably fine varieties have been 
introduced, through the exertions of collectors sent out by Mr. Linden and others. Amongst 
the most beautiful we must notice Rosea picta, illmtris, and Veitchii ; while as a proof that 
there are yet many more to be added to our list, we may state that during the past year no 
less than nine species have been either figured or introduced, 
Mara7ita Malcoyana has also been exhibited under the name of M. Olivaris ; hut as the 
former name was that under which it was first described by Professor Edouard Morren, and 
named by him after M. Makoy of Liege, it has, according to the laws of etiquette which 
regulate botanical nomenclature, retained the former name. It is of a very elegant dwarf 
habit, something in the way of M. Veitchii, but much smaller ; the leaves are on slender erect 
stalks, oblong, blunt, \mequal sided, ornamented from the midrib to nearly the margin with 
oblong patches of dark-green on a greyish-creamy striated ground. It is a native of South 
America, from whence we believe all the species as yet known have come. 
It requires the ordinary treatment of stove-plants, and will prove, we believe, like its 
congeners, a plant of easy cultivation ; while its dwarf character will give it an additional 
charm in the eyes of many lovers of stove-plants. 
Plate 54. 
PENTSTEMONS— EGERTON HUBBARD AND W. H. DALBEN. 
A reference to our former plates of this fine herbaceous plant will show at once how 
great a difference there is between those and the varieties we now figure, not so much in the 
colours of the flowers as in the habit of the plants; for whereas formerly the habit was long 
and the flowers were pendulous, we are now getting plants with a more branching character 
of growth and with flowers more erect. We cannot but consider this a great improvement, 
and it v/ill make the flowers much more useful for cutting. This improvement is due to the 
firm of Downie, Laird and Laing. of Stanstead Park Nursery, and Edinburgh, who have 
for so many j^ears carried on its cultivation, and who in their more extended nursery grounds 
at the former place are enabled to give greater space to the culture of those florists’ flowers 
for which they have been long famous. 
The culture of the Pentstemon is very simple ; it does not always stand over the winter, 
and therefore it is better to keep up the stock of good varieties by striking cuttings in the 
autumn, keeping them in a cold frame during the winter, and then turning them out in 
the spring. Many, however, having once obtained a good strain, will be satisfied with 
raising seedlings every year, as they seed freely, and the young plants grow most vigorously. 
The varieties now figured are selected from a number which Messrs. Downie, Laird 
and Laing intend to send out this spring. Rgerton Hubbard is deep reddish purple with a 
clear white throat, and TV. II. Dalben is bright magenta with dark centre. The flowers in 
both instances are of good size, while their erect character gives them a much neater and 
compact appearance than when the flowers are pendulous. 
