BEGONIA MARTIANA.— VON MARTIU8’ ELEPHANT’S EAR. 
Class XXI. MONCECIA.— Order VI. POLYANDRIA. 
Natural Order, BEGONIACE^E.* 
Generic Characters. — Male flowers — Calyx wanting. Corolla polypetalous. Petals commonly 
four, unequal. Female flowers — Calyx wanting. Corolla with from four to nine petals, generally unequal. 
Styles three, bifid. Capsule triquetrous, winged, three-celled, many seeded. 
Specific Character. — Plant a perennial. Stem smooth, striated, semi-translucent, covered with a 
thin glaucous bloom. Leaves obliquely ovate, deeply and unequally indented at the margins, smooth, 
shining green. Petioles longer than the leaves. Peduncles usually two-flowered, more than twice as long 
as the pedicel. Flowers large, rich crimson purple. Petals serrated at the edges. 
With the exception ofB. coccinea, and one mentioned by Mr. Hartweg, there is perhaps no species of 
Begonia yet known that produces flowers of a finer colour than the present. Most of the members of the 
genus have blossoms varying from a pure white to a pale blush ; but in the species before us, we have a 
rich and delicate crimson pink. 
It is a plant of perennial duration, with tuberous roots, which demand considerable care and watch- 
fulness to preserve their vitality through the winter. The stems are beautifully striated and transparent, 
like those of the Balsam, and are clothed with neat foliage of a rather diminutive size. The blossoms are 
large, and sufficiently abundant to impart a most inviting aspect ; and the smallness of the leaves only 
becomes a fault when the plant is kept in a dry atmosphere, or otherwise mismanaged during the growing 
season. 
We have little to communicate respecting its native country. It is said to be a production of Brazil; 
from whence, according to our Botanical Catalogues, it was transmitted to England in 1829. 
Like many of its congeners it soon betrays the effects of injudicious or careless treatment. We point 
to this, more especially, because its attractiveness is so intimately connected with, and dependent upon, a 
highly cultivated state, that it elicits little admiration in a converse condition. Under unfavourable cir- 
cumstances, the branches become straggling and attenuated, the internodes lengthen without acquiring a 
corresponding vigour, and if flowers are formed at all, they are scanty both in numbers and magnitude. 
To enable it to form a compact spreading specimen, three or four principal stems should be allowed in 
a pot ; these, under genial culture, will reach nearly eighteen inches in height, and to make a good specimen, 
they should measure nearly as much across. It is necessary to be circumspect in the application of water 
at the commencement of growth, for the young shoots are then extremely susceptible of injury from a sur- 
plus of moisture : but as the plant acquires the full renewal of its vegetative activity, copious supplies will 
be required almost daily. A stove or warm pit with bottom-heat, screened from the glare of the mid-day 
sun, will be the fittest place till the flowers begin to form, when it may be removed to an intermediate house, 
where more light is admitted. 
The wood-path is carpeted over with leaves, 
The glories of Autumn decay ; 
The Goddess of Plenty has bound up her sheaves, 
And carried the harvest away, 
With dissonant guns, hills and valleys resound, 
The swains through the coppices rove ; 
The partridges bleed on the dry stubble ground, 
The pheasants lie dead in the grove. 
Gloomy as this month usually is, yet there are some intervals of clear and pleasant weather ; the 
mornings are occasionally, sharp, but the hoarfrost is soon dissipated by the sun, and a fine open day 
follows. 
A few soft days succeed 
Of pleasing mildness ; bnt the varying storm 
By fits prevails, or, wrapped in terror, whirls 
The last, the lingering honours from the grove. 
The trees are now stripped of their foliage. The separation of their leaves from their branches is 
termed the fall : and in north America, the season in which this takes place is universally known by that 
name. The falling of leaves is not always in consequence of the injuries of aut umnal frosts, for some trees 
* We are indebted to that charming work the Magazine of Botany for the figure and description. 
