March 18 COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
449 
The present species was discovered in Mexico b}' Mr. D. 
Don, and the name lie bestowed upon it refers to the 
scattered, brown, bristly hairs which fringe the edges of the 
leaves. It is a liardy evergreen shrnb (or requiring but 
slight shelter in winter) with white dowers, giving birth to 
rich, reddish-brown berries. Sir .J. Paxton states that they 
become purple. It was introduceil by Messrs. Veitch, in 
1850, and grows in the open ground of tbeir Nurseries. It 
requires a peat border, and is cultivated like a moderately 
hardy Azalea. 
ARTHROSTE’MMA FRAGILE. 
(Brittle Arthrostejijia.) j 
The following particulars ive co 2 iy from the second I 
edition of The Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionara', now in | 
course of iiublication :—“ Its name is derived from aiiliron, 
a Joint, and stevnun, a crown ; the llower-stalks beingjointed. 
Natural Order, Jlclaslomads (Melastomacere), and to the 
Liuna'an Octandria, Jfoiioffniiin. Allied to Osherkia." 
Arthrostemma fragile. 
“Raised from seeds gathered by Mr. Ilartweg in the 
west of Mexico, and received in January, 184(1. 
“A light green brittle-stemmed shrub, about three feet 
high, and covered slightly with fine glandular scattered 
hairs. Leaves stalked, about two inches long, egg shaped, very 
slightly heart-shaped, five-nerved, acute, and finely serrated, 
blowers an inch-ami a-half across, in loose few ilowered 
terminal cymes. Petals oblong, slightly mucronate, deep 
rosy-purple. Anthers nearly equal in size, furnished at the 
base with a short incurved bifid spur. Ajiex of the ovary 
free, slightly hispid; its interior is two celled, with two 
sjiurious additional dissepiments, ivliich make it four-celled. 
“ Dir. Bentliam remarks that this species ‘ is not among 
Mr. Hartweg's dried i)lauts. As to the genus, it is very near 
De Candolle’s section Moiiucha’/iini of Arthrostemma; but 
the appendages of the anthers are all bifid at the extrcmily. 
and the ovary has but two cells instead of four. It differs 
from Heteronoma by the anthers of both series being fer¬ 
tile and nearly equal and similar, as well as by the nervation 
of the leaves. The setai on the ovary are small and few, 
but they exist; and its close afiinity is evidently with Arth¬ 
rostemma (DIonochajtum), a good genus, if all Arthros¬ 
temma be not united to Chtetogastra.’ 
“ It is a stove shrub, growing readily in a mixture of loam, 
peat, and leafmould, and easily increased by eultings. It 
llowers from Juno to Seiitember, but its blossoms are very 
fugitive; they are, however, gay-coloured, and make an 
agreeable variety, especially as they are associated with a fine 
deci) green shining foliage.”— Hortinilinral t^ocietij's Journal. 
IS THE POTATO MURRAIN INFLUENCED 
BY FROST? 
In continuation of my statement on the connection be¬ 
tween frost and the Potato disease, made in No. 081, p. 081, 
1 beg to add one or two more examples. Happening to 
relate my experience of last season to a farmer in East 
Lothian, he immediately replied, that ho had a case exactly 
similar. His Potato field lay on the west side of a stiipe of 
plantation, sufficiently tall to shade the Potatoes from the 
first rays of the morning sun. Right across this plantation, 
however, there lay a roadway into tlie field, and opposite 
this roadway, and of the same breadth with it, was a belt of 
badly-diseased I’otatoes, stretching from one side of the 
field to the other. In the frost of the 7th of Sejitember this 
belt was exposed, through the opening in the plantation, to 
the first rays of the rising sun, and, before the direct rays 
could reach any other part of the field, the temperature had 
so far risen as to melt the hoar frost on the leaves. In this 
narrow stripe, passing athwart the Potato drills, the diseased 
