OP ORNAMENTAL ANNUALS. 
199 
in a Latin poem, entitled “ The Gardens,” written by a French author, named Rapin, a century or two ago. 
Rapin adds, that Rhodanthe, after her death, was changed by the pitying Apollo into a rose, of which some of 
the troublesome crowd became the thorns; while a few of the most persevering were changed into grubs, 
caterpillars, bees, and butterflies, which still haunt the rose in admiration of her beauty. 
The ordinary culture of the Rhodanthe is simply sowing it with other half hardy annuals on a hotbed in 
February, and planting it out in May; but we have a most magnificent plant, presented to us by Captain 
Mangles himself, which was raised in Henderson’s Nursery, Pine Apple Place, Edgeware Road, by his foreman 
Mr. Goode, and treated in the following manner. The seed was sown April the 5th, in pots filled with three 
parts peat or rather heath-mould, and one of loam. In the first week of May, when the plants were still in the 
seed-leaf, they were pricked out into small thumb pots, or sixties. In a week’s time they were shifted into 
rather larger pots ; and this shifting was repeated six times, always into rather larger pots, till the middle of 
August, when the plants were in pots No. 16, and when they were first allowed to flower. On the fourteenth 
of September, when one of these plants was sent to us by Captain Mangles, it was one and a half feet high, 
above four feet in circumference, and had a thousand expanded flowers upon it besides innumerable buds, which 
have continued expanding ever since; and it is still (November 1) a blaze of beauty. It is watered every 
morning with a little warm water ; and the dead flowers are cut off as they fade. “ The great art,” says Mr. 
Goode, in the MS. directions, sent us by Captain Mangles, “ is to prevent the plant from growing upwards, and 
to cause it to increase and expand in breadth instead of length.” To do this, all that is required is “ to watch 
it well, and the moment the roots have nearly filled the pot, to transplant it into a larger one. By constantly 
attending to this, the plants will grow thick and shrubby in their character; and while the shoots will be strong 
and tie of bearing a most profuse fioration, the beauty of the plants in shape will be very greatly improved.” 
Seeds of the Rhodanthe Manglesii are common in all the seed-shops. 
GENUS XXIX. 
MORNA, Lindl. THE MORNA. 
Lin. Syst. SYNGENESIA JEQUALIS. 
Generic Character. —Head homogamous. Receptacle fiat, naked. ] Pappus scabrous, in one series, setaceous, equal, and pubescent at the 
Involucral scales in many series, dry, coloured, imbricated, petiolate. ■ base. 
Anthers bicalcarate at the base. Achcnia glabrous, compressed, beaked. 
1.—MORNA NITIDA, Lindl. THE SHINING MORNA. 
Engravings. —Bot. Reg. t. 1941 ; and mn fig. 4, in Plate 34. j rather broadest at the base; mucronate, pubescent. Involucral scales 
Specific Character. —Stem pubescent, corymbose. Leaves linear, I yellow, acute, serrulated. 
Description, &c. —A beautiful everlasting flower, with, as Dr. Bindley describes it, “ starry heads of a most 
rich and transparent yellow, having quite a metallic brilliancy when illuminated by the sun.” It was named by 
Dr. Lindley after “ Morna, one of the heroines of the Northern romances, who was a beautiful lady, confined in 
a golden hall, guarded by a thousand golden lances, and attended night and day by knights, whose sole office 
was to do her bidding in all things, except allowing her to escape from her splendid thraldom.” Morna nitida 
is a native of the sandy country near the Swan River, whence seeds of it were sent home by Sir James Stirling 
in 1835. Seeds may be had at Chari wood’s, and other seed-shops. They should be sown in pots of peat and 
