MACLEANIA LONGIELORA.— LONG-FLOWERED MACLEANIA. 
Class XVI. MONADELPHIA. Order IV. DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order, VACCINIE^E. THE BILBERRY TRIBE. 
W hen Sir William Hooker named a plant Macleania, he not only paid a well merited compliment, for few 
British merchants have deserved better of Botany than Mr. John Maclean of Lima, but he founded a good 
genus. A less accurate observer might indeed have referred it to Thiebaudia, a group of plants from the 
same countries, and very similar in habit ; but each anther of Thiebaudia is divided into two long tubes, 
which open at their point ; while, on the contrary, in Macleania the anthers have only one tube each. 
The plant now described is very near M. angulata, figured in the Botanical Magazine, t. 3979, and said 
to, be from Peru. But that species has shorter and broader leaves with manifest stalks, and the flowers are 
also shorter, contracted at the orifice, and yellow there. Their colour, too, is represented as much more 
vivid than in our species. 
A warm greenhouse shrub, which requires to be kept in an intermediate house during winter. It may 
be potted in a compost, consisting of sandy loam and peat in equal proportions. Owing to its producing 
very fleshy roots, a large pot or tub will be required, or where there is convenience it is probable it would 
succeed well if planted out in a conservatory. It requires a liberal supply of water in summer, but very 
little in winter. To have this plant well furnished with young wood from the bottom for flowering, it is 
necessary to cut it well back early in autumn, in order to have the plant clothed with leaves before winter. 
It is rather difficult to multiply, but may be managed under a bell glass in a bottom heat of 80°. 
Note by Mr. Hartweg, — This is one of the numerous fleshy-rooted vaccinaceous shrubs, frequently 
met with in dry and exposed situations in the Andes; the present species has been collected on the main 
Cordillera near Loxa, (4° S.) at an elevation of about 8,000 feet above the sea, where it forms a neat com- 
pact evergreen shrub, five feet high, and is called by the inhabitants Salapa. 
It is remarked, in the “Literary Pocket Book/’ that now Christmas-day only, or at most a day or two 
are kept by people in general; the rest are school holidays. But, formerly, there was nothing but a run of 
merry days from Christmas-eve to, Candlemas, and the first twelve in particular were full of triumph and 
hospitality. We have seen but too well the cause of this degeneracy. What has saddened our summer 
time has saddened our winter. What has taken us from our fields and May-flowers, and suffered them to 
smile and die alone, as if they were made for nothing else, has contradicted our flowing cups at Christmas. 
The middle classes make it a sorry business of a pudding or so extra, and a game at cards. The rich invite 
their friends to their country houses, but do little there but gossip and gamble [?] ; and the poor are either left 
out entirely, or presented with a few clothes and eatables that make up a wretched substitute for the long 
and hospitable intercourse of old. All this is so much the worse, inasmuch as Christianity had a special 
eye to those feelings which should remind us of the equal rights of all: and the greatest beauty in it is not 
merely its charity, which we contrive to swallow up in faith, but its being alive to the sentiment of charity, 
which is still more opposed to these proud distances and formal dolings out. — The same spirit that vindi- 
cated the pouring of rich ointment on his feet, (because it was a homage paid to sentiment in his person,) 
knew how to bless the gift of a cup of water. Every face which you contribute to set sparkling at Christ- 
mas is a reflection of that goodness of nature which generosity helps to uncloud, as the windows reflect the 
lustre of the sunny heavens. Every holly bough and lump of berries with which you adorn your houses is 
a piece of natural piety as well as beauty, and will enable you to relish the green world of which you show 
yourselves not forgetful. Every wassail bowl which you set flowing without drunkenness, every harmless 
