150 
NEW GARDEN PLANTS. 
a free-flowering and shrubby habit, whilst it retains nearly the foliage and blossoms of the tuberous 
annual-stemmed female parent. This combination has produced what is probably the handsomest 
Begonia to be found in cultivation : certainly it is a most beautiful and brilliant thing. We owe to 
Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, and Co., of Exeter, (who possess, we believe the entire stock,) the opportu¬ 
nity of figuring it, from fine flowering branches communicated a few weeks since. It appears to 
bloom chiefly in autumn, and continues some time in beauty. The original plant was exhibited last 
October, at the meeting of the Horticultural Society, in Regent Street, and it was then greatly 
admired. 
The stems of Begonia prestoniensis are round, smooth, flexuose, and branched, tinged, in the 
younger parts, with red. On these the leaves are borne alternately on hairy petioles which are 
about an inch long, and have triangular-lanceolate stipules at their base. The leaves are obliquely 
ovate-acuminate, slightly sinuate-lobed and [doubly serrated with rose-coloured cuspidate teeth. The 
upper surface is scattered over with short hairs, which occur more numerously on the ribs beneath. 
The flowers, of a brilliant orange-scarlet, and sweet-scented, come in trichotomous cymes from the 
axils of the leaves, the peduncles being longer than the leaves, and furnished at its forkings, and at 
the base of the pedicels, with roundish-ovate, sharply and finely-toothed bracts, which, as well as the 
peduncles, pedicels, and ovaries, are coloured red. The male flowers consist of four spreading petals, 
the two outer of which are oblong-obovate, much larger than (more than twice the size of) the obovate 
wedge-shaped inner petals, and of a dense tuft of orange-coloured stamens. They are deep orange-red, 
and measure an inch and a half in diameter. The female flowers are smaller than the males, of the 
same colour, and have five petals, three of which are smaller than the others. The ovary is roundish- 
triquetrous, having two of its angles very narrowly winged; the other angle bears a large and somewhat 
triangular wing. The placentas are double, not irregularly lobed, as in B. cinnabarina ; it is there¬ 
fore a Diploclinium, not a Platyclinium.* Messrs. Lucombe & Co. speak of the plant as of a neat and 
dwarf habit, and very profuse in flowering, which the specimen exhibited last year in Regent Street 
evidenced ; they also state that it requires only greenhouse treatment, and is as fragrant as any of the 
tea-scented Roses. 
Most of the Begonias thrive best in a shady house, kept at a temperature intermediate between that 
of a stove and greenhouse ; and we imagine the present to be no exception, though, from the season 
of its blooming, it would doubtless flower readily in a warm greenhouse. They prefer a rather light 
soil, composed of equal parts sandy loam and leaf-mould, with sand added, and plenty of drainage. 
They may be grown to perfection in a pit, kept rather close and shaded, and at a temperature of from 
55° to 60°. Cuttings, when these are afforded, offer the best mode of propagation. They grow readily 
planted in rather sandy soil, and placed in such a pit as that just mentioned. To grow a specimen, 
a healthy free-rooted cutting should be selected, and kept shifted on as it advances; and the points of 
its shoots should be continually nipped off as soon as they have formed three or four leaves. As the 
Begonias grow in such a situation through the winter, a cutting selected then, and grown on in this 
way until the next autumn, would form a large full-branched mass, and might be expected to bloom 
finely, if stopping the shoots were desisted from shortly after midsummer. As soon as the flowers were 
beginning to develope, it might be removed to a close warm greenhouse; but there must be no sudden 
transition from hot to cold, or from shade to full sunlight, or from moisture to drought, or the blossom- 
buds would probably be cast off.—T. M. 
%m (fnrhi plants. 
Lonicera fragrantissima. Lindley. Most fragrant Honeysuckle.—Order Caprifoliacese (Caprifoil tribe).—A 
hardy sub-evergreen shrub, with oblong acute leaves, and white flowers exceedingly fragrant, combining the 
richness of the perfume of Orange blossoms with the delicious sweetness of Honeysuckle. A native of China. 
The flowers appear in spring with the earliest development of the leaves. 
Loasa bicolor, Klotzsch . Two-coloured Loasa.—Order Loasacese (Loasad tribe).—An annual, with twice 
* See Gat'd. Mag. Bot., ii. 153. 
