OCTOBER. 
217 
TRICHINIUM MANGLESII. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
This really handsome amaranthaceous plant has been raised from Swan 
River seeds by Mr. W. Thompson, of Ipswich, and from specimens grown by 
that gentleman our figure has been derived. Very little is as yet known of 
its habits, but it is amongst half-hardy annuals that it will probably find its 
place in our gardens, even though it be naturally, as some other of our 
Australian so-called annuals are, of more extended duration. 
The plant forms at first a tuft of radical leaves, which are long-stalked and 
oblong-spathulate in form, smooth, and of a deep green colour. From among 
these arise the flowering stems, to the height of 1^ foot; they are furnished 
sparingly below with lance-shaped sessile leaves, become slightly branched, 
and each branch terminates in a crowded oblong-oval spike, which consists of 
scarious rosy-coloured bracts, from amongst which issue the rosy purple flowers, 
these protruding considerably beyond the bracts. Both bracts and flowers are 
clothed with long conspicuous hairs. 
“ Few more lovely plants,” observes Sir W. Hooker, “ have been introduced 
to our gardens than this, which is one of the most striking of some fifty species 
known to botanistsand this encomium we think our figure will be found to 
justify. 
Mr. Thompson, who fortunately got a few of his imported seeds to vegetate, 
describes the root as being apparently perennial, throwing up several branched 
stems, each branch bearing one of the handsome heads of flowers. The copious 
white hairs, so characteristic of the genus, with which the florets and bracts 
are clothed, give, he remarks, a singular aspect to the plant, and contrast 
effectively with the Amaranth-purple petals. Under the lens these hairs are 
pretty objects; owing to their denticulations the germination of the seed, 
moreover, revealed a peculiarity worthy of note. The plumule, instead of 
rising from between the two unequal seed-leaves as in most plants, was found to 
be emitted from a point considerably below them. The same thing occurs, 
he adds, in Dodecatheon meadia. 
Trichinium Manglesii was first described by Dr. Bindley some twenty 
years since in the “Botanical Register,” where it is spoken of as a most 
beautiful plant, with the heads of flowers 3 inches across. It has not till now, 
however, found its way into our gardens. M. 
CHRONICLES OF A TOWN GARDEN.—No. IX. 
The brightness of summer is slowly paling into the gloom of autumn; day 
by day is the curtain of the night drawn over the face of the earth at an earlier 
moment than it was yesterday, and withdrawn again at a later moment each 
succeeding morn. The “ sere and yellow leaves ” caught from the trees by the 
passing wind, and dropped down at our very doors as it speeds along on its 
mission, “ none knowing since the world began whence it cometh or whither it 
goeth; ” these are the footfalls of on-coming autumn, and the impending 
frosts, that, in some localities, have already appeared and left their withering 
impress—just as if the occupants of many a flower-bed had been grasped by 
the fiery hand of an avenger, and robbed of the vigour and beauty the setting 
sun had so recently smiled on as it sank in the western heavens. 
In my little front garden I have had some splendid spikes of Gladioli, that 
have been at the same time the attraction and the envy of the whole neigh- 
yol. hi. 
