Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, v. 35-36 = no. 1419-1501, 1811 B. grandis ssp. Evansiana as SYN. B. Evansiana We doubt whether this plant be not a variety of Begonia grandis; it so much resembles Kaempfer's figure, that we can scarcely find any other difference than that of the leaves being less angulated, and the female flowers more cernuous. In both, these flowers are, contrary to most of the species, four-petaled and similar to the male, the stamens are mondelphous, the angle of the capsules nearly equal, and the upper surface of the leaves are covered with minute spinules. But Thunberg, in his description of the same plant, under the name of obliqua, expressly fays, the leaves are pale on the under surface; while in our plant the older leaves are on the underside entirely bright red. In the younger leaves the veins only have this color, the interstices being of a bright green. In the Botanist’s Repository it is said, that Mr. Evans's Collector first found this plant growing in the clefts of the rocks in the Island of Pulo-Pinang, in the year 1808. Mr. Donn, in his Catalogue, marks it as a native of China, and dates its introduction to this country four years earlier. That it is really cultivated in China, the drawing above referred to, under the name of Tfou Hoy Tong, leaves no room to doubt: and we believe it has been in the royal collection at Kew from about the time Mr. Donn states. It is a highly ornamental stove plant, easily propagated by cuttings, or by the bulbs which are frequently produced at the divisions of the stem. Flowers most part of the summer. Our drawing was made at Messrs. Lee and Kennedy’s, Hammersmith.
