DICHOSEMA SUBINERME.—THE DOUBLE CRIMSON CHINESE PEACH. 
DICHOSEMA SUBINERME. 
T HIS very beautiful greenhouse shrub, which has been bloomed during the early part of the past 
summer by Messrs. Henderson, of the Pine Apple Nursery, has at first sight much the aspect of 
an Aotus, but an examination of its structure shows it to belong to the genus Dichosema, previously 
unrepresented in gardens; and it is, in fact, a species from the neighbourhood of Guildford in Western 
Australia, which has been described under the name of Dichosema subinerme by 13r. Meisner, in the 
Plantse Preissianse. Messrs. Henderson obtained it from Mr. Drummond. 
It forms a branching shrub, having slender terete branches, and something the habit of Chorozema 
Henchmanni. The branches are clothed with short, close-pressed, soft hairs, beneath which they are 
marked by pallid nerve-like lines running downwards from the base of each leaf. The leaves have 
small roundish hairy stipules at their base, and are linear bluntish, with a thickened costa, and 
recurved margins, and have pale-coloured transverse veins; when young they are slightly hairy, but they 
afterwards become smooth. The flowers are solitary, terminating very short, solitary, or twin 
branchlets, each bearing about a pair of small leaves, produced from the axils of the alternate primary 
leaves, whence also here and there proceeds a slender spine. The pedicels are shorter than the calyx 
tube, and bear a pair of small narrow subulate bracts just beneath it, the pedicels, bracts, and exterior 
of calyx being densely covered with soft spreading hairs. The flowers are very showy, being clear 
yellow, with a very conspicuous zone of deep rose-crimson at the base of the standard, the prominent 
wings having also the same red colour. The filaments of the stamens are thickened at the base, and 
adnate with the tube of the calyx for about one-fourth of its length. The ovary is subsessile, lanceo¬ 
late, furrowed above, two-celled, containing six ovules, the style sharply curved upwards, and termi¬ 
nating in a small capitate stigma. 
We are indebted for our figure and materials for description to the liberality of Messrs. Henderson, 
which we have had frequent occasion to acknowledge. 
The culture of this Dichosema will assimilate exactly with that recommended for Chorozema at 
p. 122.—M. 
THE DOUBLE CRIMSON CHINESE PEACH. 
IfiHHE double blossomed Peaches of China ( Amygdalus persica jiore semipleno ) were among the most 
A useful of the many introductions from that countiy made by Mr. Fortune during his first 
journey. The possession by the ‘ Celestials’ of several varieties of double or rather semi-double blossomed 
Peaches had been long ascertained ; but it was not until plants of two kinds, the crimson and white, 
were obtained and sent to England by the energetic traveller just named, that any of them were 
known in Europe, in a living state. These have since been distributed by the Horticultural Society, 
for whom they were obtained, and we have to thank Mr. Glendinning of the Chiswick Nursery—'who, 
by the by, has been particularly successful in their propagation and cultivation—for the opportunity of 
making the drawing, copied in the annexed plate, from a plant which bloomed finely in his nursery 
last March. 
Besides the semi-double crimson variety represented in our plate, the Horticultural Society 
obtained, as just intimated, a semi-double white variety of equal beauty. They have both in all 
respects “ the habit of the common Peach tree, except that they are more excitable, in which respect 
they approach the Almond: and consequently they are better suited for forcing, or for flowering under 
glass, than in the open air; because although hardy, they suffer from wet cold nights, which brown 
their flowers and ruin their gay appearance. It is not improbable, however, that seedlings may in 
time be produced from them in which this precociousness will disappear; for being semi-double, it is 
expected that they will occasionally ripen fruit.” This suggestion of Dr. Bindley is the more likely to 
be realized, as semi-double Peaches have undoubtedly been brought to produce fruit in the French 
gardens. 
