CUPHEA AND HYDROLEA. 
51 
sitting-room, they should receive another shifting, placing them 
at once into the largest pots they are intended to occupy, that 
no future removing may interrupt their course of blooming ; and 
if grown for the flower-beds they may be placed out without 
further preparation, and in either position will furnish a suc¬ 
cession qf their pretty blossoms through the entire summer. 
Perhaps the best of this class are the following : Melvilla , 
with scarlet and green flowers; lanceolata , having purple blos¬ 
soms ; Simsii, lilac ; strigillosa, red and green; and last, our 
present subject, platy centra, which, if not the most beautiful of 
the genus, is at least inferior to none. This plant was obtained 
from South American seed in the spring of last year, by Mr. 
Smith, gardener to H. Anderson, Esq., of the Holme, Regent’s 
Park, and by him has been successfully cultivated through the 
succeeding season in various ways. As a conservatory plant it 
stands equal to any. Its neat, yet sufficiently free habit of 
growth, and the long continued succession of its lovely blossoms, 
render it highly interesting in such a station; and as an occu¬ 
pant of the open garden it has claims to attention of a peculiar 
character. That there are other more showy plants ordinarily 
grown among bedding plants cannot be denied, but what this 
specimen may want to constitute an immediately striking object 
is made up by the happy medium style of growth enjoyed by the 
plant itself, and the constancy with which its pretty little flowers 
are produced. Its beauty is of that enduring, unobtrusive na¬ 
ture that wins on our attention the more we notice it, and for 
situations constantly in view we think few plants are better con¬ 
stituted to please. 
Perhaps two plants more thoroughly distinct in general appear¬ 
ance, and yet identical in constitutional character, and conse¬ 
quently in management, could not be brought together, than are 
those represented in our plate. The Hydrolea spinosa is a plant 
that has long been known in our collections, having been origin¬ 
ally introduced from South America so far back as 1791 ; but, 
from some chance or other, seems to have fallen out of notice for 
a considerable period, until recently it has again been brought 
forward, and now engrosses much attention. 
In habit the plant varies a great deal, according to the treat¬ 
ment it may receive. In an elevated temperature it assumes a 
