198 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
that it will be a lovely acquisition for rockwork. Mr. Anderson-Henry lias 
been tlie fortunate raiser, from seeds furnished by Professor Jameson. A 
fine companion for it would be Messrs. Backhouse’s Silenepennsylvanica, re¬ 
presented at p. 206, which, though an old plant, has long been lost to our 
gardens until now reintroduced. 
In Polymnia pyramidalis (Bevue Hort., 1867, 211, with fig.), we have what 
our French neighbours strongly recommend as a plant for the decoration of 
the summer garden, along with Ferdinandas, Verbesinas, &c. It is of arbo¬ 
rescent habit, attaining 40 feet high or more in its native country, which is 
New Grenada, in the subalpine districts of which, it grows in company with 
Cherries and Willows. It is of rapid growth, attaining 10 to 12 feet in a 
season, with a pyramidal head, and large ovate-cordate hairy leaves, which 
endure well under sunshine, measure about 12 inches broad and 16 inches 
long, and are borne on a long decurrent petiole. The flower-heads are 
numerous, yellow, and arranged in cymes. The plant has been grown in 
the garden of the Paris Museum, and was raised from seeds obtained from 
New Grenada, by M. Triana. 
M. Verschaffelt figures a Bromeliaceous plant, which he calls Vriesia 
gigantea (L’lllust. Hort., t. 516). It is a stemless stove herb, with numerous 
green, elongated, shortly acuminated, radical leaves, and a stout erect flower- 
scape 9 to 12 feet high or more, of a purplish colour, and furnished with 
oval acuminate leaf-like bracts of the same colour, from which issue very 
numerous, distichously-arranged, drooping racemes, bearing thirty to forty 
odoriferous flowers, which when expanded show three long, channelled, 
acute, spreading white segments, appearing to issue from a green oblong bud, 
formed by the convolute outer segments. It comes from the scarped rocks 
of the Organ Mountains, where it grows at an elevation of 8-4000 feet, and 
whence it was sent to M. Yerschaffelt’s establishment by M. Glaziou, Director 
of the public garden at Bio de Janeiro; and will, no doubt, form a striking 
addition to plants of this class. Another interesting stove plant, this time 
selected from Messrs. Veitch & Sons’ collection, is that which they had 
named Hypocyrta brevicalyx, but which Dr. Hooker, puzzled as to its proper 
genus, prefers to call Gloxinia Tiypocyrtijiora (Bot. Mag., t. 5655), a plant 
which “in its habit, fibrous roots, and the presence of propagula, or 
shoots bearing leaf-buds, is a Gloxinia, in its corolla a Hypocyrta, and in 
its glands a Gesnera, while in the small calyx it differs from the ordinary 
forms of all these genera.” It is a dwarf stove plant, with opposite 
roundish ovate leaves, marked by white ribs and main veins, and bearing 
axillary,-swollen, nearly globular, pubescent flowers, with a very small closed 
mouth, the lower part yellow, the upper bright vermilion scarlet. It comes 
from the Andes of Quito, and is a rather pretty thing for basket-culture in 
the hothouse, though we can scarcely believe it to be a Gloxinia. Another 
beautiful Gesneraceous plant, Ncegelia fulgida (Gartenflora, t. 538), has 
recently been raised by M. Ortgies from Mexican seeds sent by M. Boezl, 
and is now in the hands of M. Van Houtte, in whose establishment the 
plants of this race have been so successfully cultivated and hybridised. It 
grows on rocks towards the coast, often so near that the spray of the sea can 
wet them. The plant, which has the general character of N. zebrina and 
cinnabarina, has velvety bright green roundish ovate leaves, cordate at 
the base, and a branching erect inflorescence of drooping tubular flowers 
of a pure scarlet, white spotted with red on the under side of the tube. It 
differs from its allies in having the corolla tube cylindraceo-campanulate 
from a broad scarcely contracted base, and slightly tetragonal, while the 
