Plate 219 . 
ERESINE HEKBSTIP (Hooter). 
The desire of making variety in those brilliant flower-gardens 
which are now so much in vogue, and especially of contrasting 
something more sombre with the bright and glaring reds and 
yellows that predominate, has led to the introduction of many 
plants with dark foliage, such as Perilla Nankinensis , Coleus 
Verschciffeltii , and Amaranthus melancholicus ruber ,—the latest 
addition being the plant which we now figure, introduced by 
Mr. Herbst from Brazil, and to which has been awarded a first- 
class certificate by the Royal Horticultural Society. 
When a large bed has to be made, it is an admirable plan 
to trace out the outline of the figure with one of these dark- 
foliaged plants, as we saw it most artistically done at Linton 
Park, by Mr. Robson, the very able and intelligent gardener of 
Lord Holmesdale. There Perilla was employed, and when the 
immense bed was looked down upon from the terraces the 
tracing of the pattern was vividly and beautifully seen. The 
Iresine is as yet an untried plant, but its hardiness is much in 
its favour, and for this reason it may be more useful perhaps 
than some of its predecessors. 
We are indebted to Mr. Herbst, of the Kew Nursery, for the 
following account of it:— 
“This plant forms a soft-wooded shrub of from twelve to 
eighteen inches high, and is without any trouble grown into 
a perfect specimen of the most globular form, as it produces 
a branch from the axil of every leaf. In a house too warm 
and close it no doubt would grow taller,- but even then the 
stopping of the terminal shoot would make it branch very 
easily. The stem and branches are of a most beautiful almost 
* Figured in c LTllustration Horticole ’ as Achyranthes Vers chaffeltii. 
