itfeqouiw 
33£QOnift bismlor. Natural Order: Bcgoniacccc — Begonia Family. 
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Iffe 11 EGO NIAS were so named by the French Botanist, Plunder, 
in honor of Michael Begon, a governor of Santo Domingo, 
||w^and a patron of science. They are natives of Jamaica, Brazil, 
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□It / the East and West Indies, and other tropical countries. The 
large-leaved varieties have been vulgarly called Elephant’s 
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Ears, which they may perhaps resemble in shape, but the 
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exquisite beauty ot their coloring eliminates from the mind every 
ugly and unpleasant synonym. Some of them are a dark green with 
a band of silver, or groupings of silver blotches; or again entirely bronze, 
according to the individual plant. This species is grown chiefly for its 
foliage; the flowers are mostly white or faintly tinted, blooming on 
short stems. There are several kinds, however, with small waxv 
leaves that make a splendid appearance when in bloom, being hand¬ 
some in color and of fine texture. The stems of the large foliage 
variety are very much distorted. 
Imrmiln. 
QHE did corrupt frail nature with some bribe 
^ To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub, 
To make an envious mountain on my back, 
Where sits deformity to make my body; 
To shape my legs of an unequal size; 
To disproportion me in every part 
Like to a chaos. — Shakespeare. 
AM I to blame if nature threw my bodv 
1 In so perverse a mold? yet when she cast 
Her envious hand upon my supple joints, 
Unable to resist, and rumpled them 
On heaps in their dark lodging; to revenge 
[■ \. Her bungled work, she stamped mv mind more fair, 
EFORMITY is daring; 
It is its essence to o’ertake mankind 
By heart and soul, and make itself the equal — 
Ay, the superior of the rest. There is 
A spur in its halt movements, to become 
All that others cannot, in such things 
As are still free for both. —Byron. 
And as from chaos, huddled and deform’d, 
The gods struck fire, and lighted up the lamps 
That beautify the sky; so she inform’d 
This ill-shap’d bodv with a daring soul, 
And, making me less than man, she made me more. 
—Lee. 
