October 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
45 
logy, Leucothoe was a beautiful woman, who, according 
to Ovid, was metamorphosed into a tree, bearing frank¬ 
incense, on account of her falling in love with Apollo. 
In gardening, Leucothoe is one of five generic names 
proposed by the late David Don, in the Edinburgh New 
Philosophical Journal, xvii. 159, for a section of Andro¬ 
meda, that section to which Andromeda floribunda and 
acuminata belong. Other botanists have added nine 
more names, so that at the present day Andromeda is 
loaded with no less than fourteen synonyms, of which 
the subject of our present biography is one. Poor An¬ 
dromeda ! a king’s daughter once tied to a rock, and 
exposed to a sea monster, to appease the rage of a green- 
eyed demon, and in these latter days sacrificed and torn 
to pieces to satisfy the cravings of an illegitimate love 
of distinctions without differenoes. Our pen shall uever 
aid in dismembering a hair’s breath from the genus of 
our lovely Andromeda ! In a consecutive arrangement 
of the species Andromeda neriifolia must be placed near 
Andromeda floribunda, now a well-known evergreen 
species, from the mountains of Georgia, and once sup¬ 
posed to be very difficult to propagate. In the natural 
classification Andromeda belongs to the Heathworts 
(Ericaceae), and in the Linnsean system to the first 
order of the tenth class, Decandria Monogynia. 
Leucothoe neriifolia was sent to Kew Gardens, without any 
particulars, by Mr. Cunningham, of Comeley Bank Nursery. 
It is an evergreen shrub; leaves pointed, long-heart-shaped, 
leathery, and smooth on both sides; flowers, in single 
hunches, from the angle of the leaf-stalks ; stalks and calyx 
of the dowers red, corolla scarlet, pitcher-shaped, and fleshy. 
B. J. 
It requires to be grown, like the Chinese Azaleas, in rough 
turfy peat, with one-third sand, and a good open drainage. 
Like them, also, as soon as the flowering is over in the 
spring, the plants should be gently forced, to make a 
vigorous fresh growth ; after that an airy greenhouse treat¬ 
ment answers better than keeping it in the stove. Cuttings 
of the half-ripened shoots in bottom heat, under a hell-glass, 
is the readiest mode of propagation. It may probably be 
grafted on young plants of Andromeda acuminata, or flori¬ 
bunda, and no doubt, like the rest of this section of the 
genus, it will seed if it is carefully dusted with its own pol¬ 
len. If it will cross by the pollen of floribunda, we may 
expect a new race of half-hardy evergreen Andromedas of 
great interest. Hitherto the genus has so abounded in 
white flowering species, that no one thought it worth while 
to try to improve it by cross-breeding; but our knowledge 
of the readiness with which other species of Heathworts will 
cross, although of very dissimilar aspects and constitutions, 
as Rhododendrons and Azaleas, &c., ought to stimulate gar¬ 
deners to experiment in this genus also, now that they will 
have access to the bright scarlet flowers of Andromeda nerii¬ 
folia. We have years and years ago repudiated the idea of ! 
splitting up the genera of Heathworts, as Decandolle, Don, 
and others have done, and asserted that “a skilful hybridizer 
might easily make fearful disclosures ” in such arrange¬ 
ments ; but such artificial distinctions need not deter the 
young cross-breeder in a field of great pro mis e 
D. Beaton. 
Variegated Oncid (Oneidium variegatum). — Paxton’s 
Flower Garden, i. 165).—Professor Swartz, the founder 
of this genus, tells us that be named it from onhidion, a 
pimple, because of two prominences on the labellum or 
lip. The species before us was first described in Swartz’s 
Prodromus, but under the name of Epidendrum varie- 
gatum, and its specific name alludes to its variegated 
flowers. Willdenow, in his Species Plantarum, first 
added it to the Oncids. 
It was first introduced into England by Sir C. Lemon, 
Bart., from the Havannah. It is a dwarf species, with pale 
pink flowers. Its culture does not differ from that so fully 
and masterly given by Mr. Appleby for the other species. 
Dr. Lindley justly observes that every one must have felt 
a difficulty in determining the name of any species in this 
genus, and as a guide he has proposed an arrangement 
which will be found in Paxton’s Flower-Garden, i. 22. 
B. J. 
