| Description | B. dregei as SYN. B. natalensis: Above 170 species of Begonia are enumerated by Walpers. The majority of these having been described from dried specimens, too often very imperfect ones, it is hard to say whether this is among them or not. It certainly does not accord with any one of the very few that are natives of South Africa, to which country our plant belongs. It was brought to us by Captain Garden, from Natal; and though possessing no bright or lively colors, is a desirable inmate of the stove, or of a warm greenhouse, from its being so abundant a flowerer, and from these flowers being in perfection in the winter months, November and December. Description: Root a large depresso-globose tuber, scarcely half buried in the ground, and sending out branched fibers, true roots, from almost regular distances of the circumference ; this tuber is of a greyish-brown color, quite smooth, and rather gradually contracts itself into the thickened base of the stem, which is knotted and branched, and the main stem, and branches upwards gradually become more and more slender; but the whole is of a very succulent character, of a dirty yellowish green, tinged with copper, jointed and nodose at the joints; height from a foot to a foot and a half. Leaves semicordate and acuminate, resembling the half of a cordate five-lobed leaf, the costa dividing it into two very unequal portions, and the lower lobe forming a large appendage or ear to the leaf on one side. The margin is also coarsely, almost lobato, serrate; the color a dull green, paler beneath, the upper side marked with whitish spots, most apparent on the old leaves. Petiole shorter than the leaf, reddish. Peduncles axillary, solitary, about as long as the petioles, dichotomously branched, each panicle or cyme bearing both male and female flowers. Male flowers consisting of two orbicular or subrhomboid, spreading, yellowish-white sepals, tinged with rose, and slightly veined; stamens fasciculate, ten or twelve. Female flowers of five (rarely four) spreading, rhombeo-ovate sepals, of the same color as the male. Ovary and fruit with three vertical wings, two of them large, rather acutely angled, and forming together a nearly equilateral triangle; the third wing is shorter, rounded (or forming the segments of a circle in its outline), and slightly waved. Style short; stigmas very downy, much and spirally twisted.
The Garden, v. 6, 1874 B. dregei var. dregei as SYN B. richardsiana: Richards' Cut-leaved Begonia, this pretty little species is a native of Natal, and was introduced to our gardens in 1871. In general habit and mode of flowering it bears considerable resemblance to the well-known B. Dregei, from which, however, it differs, in having laciniated foliage. It forms an elegant decorative plant and grows freely in a moderately cool greenhouse, forming bushy little specimens covered with multitudes of snow-white crystalline flowers. Like all the tuberous-rooted species of the genus, it is readily propagated by division, and if grown near the light, these divisions soon form flowering plants. A compost of turfy loam, leaf mold, and coarse sand suits it admirably, and like most other members of the genus, it requires an abundant supply of root-moisture when growing. Plants of this desirable little species have already found their way into Covent Garden Market, and it well deserves cultivation as one of the prettiest plants in the whole group. It was obtained from South Africa by Mr. James Richards, in complement to whom it is named. - B. Curtis's botanical magazine, v. 66 = ser. 2, v. 13, 1839 B. dregei as SYN B. parvifolia, Graham: We received at the Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, this species, with many other scarce plants, from the noble and always liberal establishment at Berlin, in 1836. It flowered profusely in the collection of Dr. Neill at Canonmills, and at the Botanic Garden in May, and throughout the summer. The great and long continued succession of flowers which it produces, and its neat foliage, render it a desirable species for cultivation. Description: Whole plant glabrous. Stem suffruticose, branches red, transparent. Petioles (one to two inches long) spreading, at length divaricated, channeled above. L eaves shorter than the petioles, ovate, unequally cordate at the base, delicate green above, pale and crystalline below, with prominent reddish veins, lobed; lobes subacute, distantly serrated, with a minute bristle in the base of each fissure. Corymbs axillary, on peduncles which are longer than the petioles, forked, bearing a male flower in the cleft, and one male and one female upon each division. Bracts subrotund., greenish-white. Flowers white; Male flowers of two subequal entire and kidney-shaped petals, very rarely with a small one between these; stamens numerous, attached only at the base, filaments slender, connective obovato-elliptical, anthers small, lateral. Female flowers of five obovate, unequal petals. Styles short and stout, expanded at the apex, and contorted; stigmas marginal upon the extremity; germen with three unequal, irregular, large, crenate wings. - Graham. |
