CUMMINGIA TRIMACULATA— THREE-SPOTTED CUMMINGIA. 
Class VI. HEXANDRIA.— Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order, LILIACE^E. THE LILY TRIBE. 
Generic character. — Perianth half-superior, campanulate, six-cleft, deciduous. Anthers emarginate at 
the base ; filaments very short, wide at the insertion, conniving. Ovary three-celled. Ovules indefinite. 
Stigma covered with frosted points. Capsule three-celled, dehiscing through the back of the cells; cells 
few-seeded — Don’s Gard. and Botany. 
Specific Character. — Plant a bulbous perennial. Stem erect, rigid. Leaves linear, channelled, gla- 
brous, recurved, spreading. Flowers in loose panicles. Pedicels thread-shaped, very smooth. Perianth 
monopetalous, ten-nerved; limb spreading, longer than the tube, three-spotted. Filaments obcuneate. 
Anthers yellow. Style awl-shaped, white. 
The eagerness so universally manifested to possess blue-flowering plants will create for the present 
little species, when brought more generally into cultivation, and its qualifications as a becoming and orna- 
mental plant more widely known, a greater degree of solicitude than has hitherto been extended towards it. 
The apathy and indifference with which but too many of the most lovely of Flora’s kingdom are regarded, 
when the first feelings which their novelty excited have subsided, is a matter continually exhibited, and our 
greenhouses and flower-gardens are thus prevented from being the gaily decorated places they might be 
with a judicious selection of the plants already in the country. Indeed, the introduction of new species, is 
in some degree at least, an evil, when mere novelty can usurp the place of positive merit, aud really de- 
serving and engaging plants are disregarded with the sole view of making room for a new candidate of in- 
ferior pretensions. 
The subject of our embellishment is a Chilian species, and was first known in this country through 
plants collected by the daughter of the British Consul at Valparaiso, and forwarded to a friend in England, 
who presented them to the Chelsea Botanic Garden in 1829. The specimen from which our figure was 
taken in the month of June, 1842, at Mr. Knight’s nursery, was received by that gentleman in 1840, from 
a friend at Valparaiso, where it is known amongst the natives by the name of Paxero, or Paterita. 
The flower-stalk grows about a foot high, and is crowned with a loose and spreading panicle of pretty, 
pendulous, bell-shaped blossoms, attached to short and attenuated, flexile pedicels. The leaves are long 
and narrow, and surround the flower-stalk without rising high enough to interfere with the exposure of the 
flowers ; hut instead, they are spread out with a pleasing gentle curvature. 
It flowers in May and June, and when grown in a pot is a neat plant to place on the front stage of a 
greenhouse. To have fine flowering specimens for the open borders, the bulb should be potted early in a 
light sandy loam, and started into growth in a frame, to be planted out, as soon as it can be safely done, 
without injury from frost, in a warm border prepared with a similar soil. But the bulbs may be allowed to 
remain in the ground all winter, as they merely require to have the ground covered with some protecting 
material to preserve them uninjured from severe frosts. 
Cummingia is a genus formerly incorporated with Conanthera, but separated by Mr. D. Don, and 
named in compliment to Lady Gordon Cumming. The specific name of the present species is expressive 
of the large dark spot at the base of each of the three petals. 
The following extracts are taken from the pages of the Every Day Book. 
The ears are fill’d, the fields are white, 
The constant harvest-moon is bright ; 
To grasp the bounty of the year, 
The reapers to the scene repair, 
With hook in hand, and bottles slung, 
And dowlas-scrips beside them hung. 
The sickles stubble all the ground, 
And -fitful hasty laughs go round; 
The meals are done as soon as tasted, 
And neither time nor viands wasted 
All over — then the barrels foam— 
The “ Largess ’’-cry, the “ Harvest-home !” 
1 We are indebted for the figure and description of this plant to Mr. Paxton’s agreeable work, the “Magazine of Botany.” 
