38 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
racemes of white and gold being produced in the same style, but they are 
larger and handsomer. The year’s acquisitions in this department of cul¬ 
ture are, however, not yet exhausted, Eangoon having given to Messrs. 
Veitcli the new Vanda Bensoni, a commendable species allied to V. furva, 
with the flowers white outside, yellow spotted and streaked with brown 
within, while the lip is ruby-coloured marked with purple and yellow spots; 
and Ecuador having furnished to the Messrs. Backhouse & Son the pretty 
little Mesospinidium sanguineum, a cool Orchid, which will no doubt im¬ 
prove on further acquaintance, and which bears a short branching panicle 
of glossy rose-coloured flowers, issuing from the base of a prettily mottled 
pseudobulb. 
Among Foliage plants the accessions are very numerous. We may 
instance first a new Fern, Adiantum velutinum, remarkable for its tall stature, 
its fine spreading decompound fronds, and its dimidiato-oblong deorsely 
falcate pinnules, quite a major domo amongst the stove Maiden-hairs ; and 
next Adiantum Lindeni , another stove Maiden-hair, of elegant habit, but 
smaller than velutinum, with pentangular tripinnate fronds, and large oblong 
dimidiate deorsely-falcate pinnules. The first of these comes from Colum¬ 
bia, the second from the Amazons, and both were introduced by M. Finden, 
and have passed into the hands of Mr. Bull. One of the finest plants in 
this group is no doubt the Anthurium regale , as M. Linden calls it, a plant 
which, with all the good qualities of A. magnificum, obviously differs from 
it in the more tapered and acuminated form of its leaves, the colouring and 
shading being alike in both. Dichonscmdra musaica, another of Linden’s 
plants, gives us a new and elegant type of variegation, for its deep green 
leaves are, as it were, marked out with a pattern in mosaic of white trans¬ 
verse zigzag lines, and the plant is one of striking beauty. Diefenbachia 
Weirii, introduced by the unfortunate Weir, proves to be a very distinct and 
attractive plant, with leaves apparently smaller than in the other Dieffen- 
bacliias in cultivation, and in the best form—for there are more than one— 
finely variegated in the centre with motley markings of a yellowish green, 
bordered by the deeper green margin. In Pandanus distichus , purchased 
from the French gardens by Messrs. Veitch & Sons, we get, as has been 
observed, the elegant Screw Pine, no longer a screw, but spreading out its 
leaves like a monster fan. In Acalypha tricolor , introduced from New Cale¬ 
donia by Mr. J. G. Veitch, we have another distinct and most characteristic 
type of variegation, and indeed a new colour amongst variegated plants, its 
blotches and patches of flame-colour or coppery red, distributed over the 
broad-surfaced foliage, being quite unlike anything previously known in our 
gardens, and affording a remarkable contrast when associated with other 
plants. In Fittonia argyroneura, a Peruvian plant, introduced by Mr. Bull, 
we gain a lovely companion for Fittonia (or Gymnostachyum) Verschaffeltii, 
with its red-veined green leaves, and a plant of great beauty in itself, for 
nothing can be more charming than its foliage of bright clear green traversed 
by carefully-pencilled veinings of the purest white. The Dracaena albo- 
marginata, brought by Mr. J. G. Veitch from the Solomon Isles, is a most 
promising plant, with white leaf-margins, but has not yet been seen in a 
well-developed state. Mr. Bull’s Terminalia elegans, from Madagascar, a 
shrub, with trifoliate leaves having lanceolate leaflets marked with a red costa, 
and elegantly reticulated with dark veins on a glossy pale green ground, is, 
moreover, no doubt a plant of much merit. Finally, we have added to the 
beautiful genus Maranta (including Calathea), not only M. Lindeniana , 
which rivals the exquisitely painted M. Veitchii, but the scarcely less 
