46 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
THE MEXICAN MIMOSA. 
Having had a number of inquiries about this interest¬ 
ing plant, we take from a foreign publication the fol¬ 
lowing description and illustration: 
“This most beautiful relative of the Acacias and 
Mimosas has never obtained the position it is justly 
entitled to in collections of flowering plants. It cannot 
be that a doubt is entertained as to its fitness for a con¬ 
spicuous place wherever first-class plants are grown, but 
the fact is, few cultivators are acquainted with it prac¬ 
tically, and therefore cannot testify to its beauty. When 
it acquired a momentary fame as a novelty, through 
notices in Sweet’s ‘Hortus’ (195), Loudon’s ‘Hortus’ 
(405), and ‘Paxton’s Magazine’ (1844. 147), many cul¬ 
tivators took it in hand, but finding it shy of flowering, 
allowed it to pass out of hand, and thus a plant that 
will abundantly repay for skilful management lost its 
opportunities and passed into obscurity. The few who 
have succeeded in cultivating Inga pulcherrima in a 
satisfactory manner have found it an altogether tract¬ 
able subject, a really free-flowering plant, desirable for 
its distinctive beauty, and in its way representative of 
an important section of the vegetable kingdom. It is a 
free-growing stove-tree, rising twenty to thirty feet, 
with bright green pinnate leafage, and heads of flowers 
from which the crimson stamens protrude in such a 
manner as to form a triangular mass marked with dark 
