Addisonia. New York Botanical Garden v. 23 (1954-1959) http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/26054 Begonia peltata - Among horticulturally important plant groups, begonias rank exceptionally high, both from the viewpoint of ornamental foliage and ornamental flowers. There have been described in this genus approximately thirteen hundred species, not all of which are likely to be eventually accepted as distinct, but there will still be a great number to draw upon for greenhouse and pot-plant material. The wild-species kind are grown mostly by fanciers and collectors, but the horticultural varieties and the hybrids, of which there are thousands of different kinds, are among the most popular of house and window-garden plants. There is, in fact, scarcely a group of window plants in the eastern or central United States which does not contain at least one begonia. Our present subject is one of the fibrous-rooted sorts, and since its flowers are rather dull in color, is grown for the ornament of its leaves. It is easily distinguished from all the other kinds of begonia in cultivation by its thick, fleshy, peltate, white or grayish-felted leaves. It was introduced into European greenhouses about 1840 from Mexico, and is still somewhat uncommon in cultivation, being seen only in fanciers' collections. It grows well in a soil of two parts loam, one-part leaf mold, one-part well-rotted manure, and one-part sand. Begonia peltata is a fibrous-rooted, somewhat succulent plant one or two feet tall. The stems, leaves and flower stalks are covered with a scurfy, whitish wool. The leaf-blades are four to nine inches long, obliquely orbicular ovate with a shallowly repand-crenate margin, tapered abruptly to a short tip, rather thick and fleshy in texture, peltately attached off-center to the long petioles. The Rowers are white, in large-forked clusters on stalks six to nine inches long, the petals and ovary with a thin covering of white hairs. The male flowers are about an inch across, with two large rounded outer parts, and two narrowly oblong inner parts. The cluster of stamens is bright yellow. The pistillate flowers have a three-angled and winged ovary about one-half inch long, one of the wings slightly narrower than the other two; on top of the large ovary are two or three rounded petals about one-fourth inch long, the third petal, when present, is small and narrowly oblong. The fruit is a three-winged capsule formed by the slightly enlarged ovary and filled with minute tan-colored seeds. Edward J. Alexander.
