Plate 233. 
ACHIMENES, PINK PERFECTION, AND 
GRANDIS. 
Those who are able to afford the luxury of a house where a 
moderate amount of heat can be obtained for a short period of 
the year, know how very valuable for the summer decoration 
of their houses are the tribes of Acliimenes , Tydosa, and Gloxinia , 
in all of which great improvements have taken place during 
the past few years, as our pages have given abundant testimony 
to in the fine varieties we have from time to time figured. 
Acliimenes have been the more especial care of Mr. Parsons, 
of Welwyn, and to him we are indebted for some of the finest 
varieties in cultivation, for when we mention Mauve Queen , Car - 
minata splendens , Dazzle , Bosea magnifica , and Meteor (a few of 
Mr. Parsons’s seedlings), it will be at once seen how very largely 
he has contributed to their present advanced character as ex¬ 
hibition flowers, and in our last volume (Plate 180) will be found 
figures of two very excellent varieties, Purpurea elegans and 
Leopard , which, with Magnet , Scarlet Perfection , Vivicans and 
Eclipse , form the most admired and newest of the section; they 
were let out by Mr. B. S. Williams, of Holloway, and still will 
hold that position, for we are informed by Mr. Williams that 
the varieties now figured, together with some others, of Mr. 
Parsons’s raising, will not be distributed this season, the stock 
being small, so that exhibitors must be contented for the pre¬ 
sent with those already out. 
It has been Mr. Parsons’s great object, not only to increase 
the beauty of colouring in the Acliimenes , but also to obtain 
that size which, when combined with brilliancy and form, so 
materially adds to the effect of a plant, and it will be seen that 
in the present instance he has made a great step in that 
