1868 . ] 
LASIANDRA MACRANTHA-THOUGHTS ON ROSES. 
193 
LASIANDRA. MACRANTHA. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
)UR picture of this magnificent stove plant, thanks to the artistic skill 
of M. Van Houtte’s staff of floral illustrators, will render it unneces¬ 
sary that we should append to it many words of eulogy. We must 
in justice state that it is a grand plant, the blossoms being no less 
remarkable for their size than for their depth and brilliancy of 
colouring; hut what is most remarkable of all is, that these monster blos¬ 
soms are produced abundantly on the tiniest plants, while in its more 
developed state it forms a freely branching slender shrub of moderate size, 
the beauty and profusion of whose flowers will render it a noble acquisition 
for our flower shows, no less than for our warm conservatories. 
The plant was first made known by Dr. Seemann, who published a 
figure (not, however, giving the blooms of the size they have since attained), 
in his Journal of Botany for 1864. From the same source whence our own 
figure was derived—namely, the collection of Mr. W. Bull, Dr. Hooker 
has just published a figure in the Botanical Magazine under the name of 
Pleroma macrantha, the genus Lasiandra being by him merged in Pleroma. 
We are indebted to M. Linden for the introduction of this fine Melas- 
tomad, it having been sent by his collector, Libon, from the province of 
St. Catherine, in Brazil. M. Linden first flowered it in 1864, and Mr. 
Bull, who has since acquired the stock, has produced it at several of our 
London shows during the present year, little plants of 4 or 5 inches high 
hearing six or seven flowers and buds. The elegantly-shaped oblong-ovate 
acuminate leaves, with their deep green rugose hairy surface, set off to 
great advantage the large smooth-petaled saucer-shaped intense violet 
purple blossoms, which latter are of rather too light a blue in our figure. 
As a stove plant it is of very easy culture, requiring to he treated in 
the same manner as Pleroma elegans, and while it resembles the latter in 
general features, it quite eclipses it in the magnitude of its flowers. 
M. 
THOUGHTS ON ROSES. 
HE spring and summer of 1868 will doubtless be long remembered by 
English horticulturists, and be often referred to in the future. Little 
or no rain fell from February to August. Cloudless days and cloudy 
^ nights were the usual order of things, so that even the refreshing 
dews, so customary and so beneficial to vegetation in our climate, were 
almost denied us. Newly-transplanted Roses have in some places suffered 
much, especially where the plants had been removed from a rich and too 
genial soil, and this notwithstanding mulching and watering them. 
Laborious as is the work of a nursery or garden on a moist clayey soil, 
3rd Series.— i. k 
