THE GENUS BEGONIA. 
265 
THE GENUS BEGONIA. 
WITH FIGURES OF B. ALBO-COCCINEA AND FUCHSIOIDES. 
What the Daisy and Buttercup are to our own meadows and 
downs, or the Ixia and Gladiolus to the table-land of the Cape ol 
Good Hope, the Begonia is to the woods and wilds of the Western 
Indies; their glory and continual ornament lighting up with 
their delicate and brightly-coloured blossoms the depths of 
umbrageous recesses, and reducing by their presence the savage 
aspect of unbroken solitudes. Transferred to our gardens, they 
fully maintain their characteristic unobtrusive but very decided 
ascendency; they are there the chief ornament of our glazed 
structures in winter, with nothing to approach their pleasing 
neatness and long continued brilliancy. 
The genus contains a very large assemblage of extremely varied 
forms, between fifty and sixty species being now included in those 
known to our collections, and it is likely there are yet many 
more to be introduced; among them are plants of every possible 
aspect, from the low-growing, stemless Jiydrocotylcefolici, to the 
suffruticose forms of ulmifolia, or the tree-like dichotoma ; all 
are interesting in their peculiar foliage and manner of growing, 
and all possess a most profuse habit of blooming; in short, no 
stove is completely furnished with its winter occupants that has 
not a collection of these plants ; and, thanks to the stimulus given 
by recent additions, cultivators begin to feel alive to the value 
of this truly beautiful family, and are now giving it the atten¬ 
tion so long withheld yet so well deserved. 
All the species which possess a branching habit (and they are 
the most numerous) are easily increased by cuttings, and the 
remaining few by separation of the root stock; the propagation 
and growth of both old and young plants must be attended to in 
summer, and from this circumstance, we believe, may be traced 
the neglect they have suffered, their possessors forgetting the 
useful and effective character of the group in winter, while 
surrounded by the splendour of summer-flowering plants. 
As the mature plants usually begin to grow immediately after 
flowering, the cuttings will offer themselves in the early part of 
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