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OSBECKIA STELLATA. — ON THE APPLICATION OF COAL SOOT AS MANURE. 
OSBECKIA STELLATA. 
Kat. Order. — Melasto3IACF^e. 
Generic Character. — Osbeckia, Linna?us. — Calyx with an 
ovate or oblong tithe, adherent to the base of the ovary below, 
frequently clothed with setce from a palmate base, or stellate, 
or very rarely simple hairs ; limb four or five toothed, the seg- 
ments alternate, with an equal number of appendages. Corolla 
of four or five petals, inserted on the throat of the calyx, alter- 
nate with its lobes, ovate or obovate. Stamens eight or ten, 
inserted with the petals, sub-equal ; anthers oblong-linear, 
slightly curved, beaked, with one pore ; the connective thickened 
at the base, shortly two-spurred, or with a pair of auricles in 
front, or -without appendages. Ovary half-inferior, free at the 
summit, conically setose, four or five celled ; cells with many 
ovules ; style filiform, thickened below the summit ; stigma 
punctiform. Capsule dry, included in the tube of the calyx, 
which is truncate above, four or five celled, loculicidally four or 
five valved at the apex. Seeds numerous, cochleate. — Shrubs or 
undershrubs, growing in tropical Asia and Africa, mostly roughly 
setose ; branchlets more or less four -sided ; leaves opposite, very 
rarely whorled, veined, almost entire ; flowers terminal, often 
capitate, with involucral bracts, sometimes solitary, more rarely 
racemose or sub-corymbose, purpurascent, showy. — [JSndlicher 
Gen. Plant. 6221.) 
Osbeckia stellata, Bon. — Star-like Osbeckia. — Suffruticose, 
branches rough with appressed bristles ; leaves stalked, lanceo- 
late oblong, acuminate, five-nerved, slightly bristly ; cymes 
terminal; calyx -tube elongated, urceolate, with numerous 
pectinately ciliated scales ; lobes short, deciduous. 
BESCRIPTION. — An erect shrub, two feet or more high, setulose-hispid ; brandies four- 
sided, opposite, more rarely alternate, becoming red above. Leaves opposite, spreading very 
much, two to six inches long, about one-third as broad, green, hispid ; leaf-stalks reddish, many 
times shorter. Flowers lilac-rose, showy, about two inches across, terminal or rarely axillary, 
solitary or in pairs, often crowded, almost sessile, on a short thick four-sided pedicel. Calyx 
oblong-urceolate, pale green, an inch long (subtended in the bud by broadly ovate, membranous, 
fuscous, ciliate, caducous bracts) ; limb deciduous, four-parted, segments spreading like a star, 
straight, lanceolate-linear, loosely hairy, with pencils of setae, terminating in a radiating tuft of 
bristles, several similar in each of the sinuses. Corolla of four petals, spreading widely ; petals 
obcordate-roimded, ciliated, veined. Stamens eight, equal, included, rising in a curve, loosely 
fascicled, yellow, glabrous ; anthers equal to the filaments or longer, linear, beaked, signioidly 
curved, terminated in a long beak, affixed by the declined sub-cordately acuminate base, without 
intermediate stalk, to the filament. Style inclined in a direction contrariwise to the stamens, 
curved at the upper part ; stigma a green simple terminal sub-pubescent point. Ovary sunk 
in the calyx, roundly ovate, ending in a bristly tapered point. Capsule dry, four-celled, 
enveloped in the calyx ; receptacles four, one half the length of the axis, to which they are 
longitudinally attached. — A. H. 
History, &c. — Introduced in 1821 or 1822 from the Botanic Garden at Calcutta. It is a 
native of Nepal. There exist two very distinct varieties ; one of which has the fringed scales 
clothing the calyx so closely that the whole surface is covered with a mass of entangled bristles ; 
the other has the calyx narrower, with the scales wider apart. Though a showy species, it 
appears to have gone out of cultivation. Our chawing was made from plants raised from seeds 
communicated by Mr. D. Moore, from Glasnevin, to the garden of the Apothecaries' Society. It 
is worth a place among select stove plants. 
Culture. — A free-growing plant, requiring a cool stove temperature while growing, and 
liberal treatment ; and to be kept rather cooler and drier when at rest. A compost of sandy 
loam, peat, and leaf-moidd, suits it. It may be propagated by cuttings, treated in the usual 
way, in a hotbed, or propagating house, in spring. — M. 
ON THE APPLICATION OF COAL SOOT AS MANURE. 
By Mil .1. TOWERS, Member of the Horticultural and Royal Agricultural Societies. 
M TTENTION has been roused b)' an interesting article which recently appeared in the Mark Lane 
XX Express, on the qualities and value of this substance to the gardener and farmer. It is a curious 
fact, that while we have possessed minute analyses of wood soot, which, as a manure, is of Ear less 
importance than the soot of coal, the strict investigation of the hitter has been comparatively neglected. 
From the nature of its chief components, some idea may he formed of the reason why it should be so 
efficacious when applied under certain circumstances. I will endeavour to point out a few facts thai 
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