| Description | Shrub like growth habit on this thick stem species. Not commecially produced; Curtis's botanical magazine, v. 57 = ser. 2, v. 4, 1830 B. reniformis as SYN. B. longipes Description: Stem three feet or more high, and fully an inch in diameter in the lower part, rounded, jointed, green, furrowed, rough with thick, short hairs or glands. Leaves alternate, large, a span and more long, when quite young, sheathed with an ovato-oblong deciduous bract, extremely unequally rotundo-cordate, the lobe or ear remarkably large, angled, and serrated, radially nerved, of a bright yellow green color, extremely glossy, and perfectly glabrous on the upper surface, beneath pale, opaque, with prominent nerves, and more of less pubescent, often with glands, and especially upon the nerves. Peduncle a foot or more long, rounded glabrous, sometimes roughish with glands, especially below, above branched in a dichotomous, so that flowers constitute a compound corymb. Pedicels glabrous, often tinged with red. Flowers generally three together, of which one is usually fertile, the other two sterile. Sterile flowers much the largest of four white petals, two opposite ones rotundate, the other two inner one’s oblong, all spreading. Stamens yellow. Fertile flowers small. Corolla of five, nearly equal, small, white, seldom spreading petals. Germen triangular, two of the angles acute, the third extending into a large broad, perfectly white wing, or lobe. At the base of the germen, are two small subulate bracts. Of the fertile flower, the pedicel is broad, flat, it is filiform in the sterile flowers. The present species of Begonia is remarkable for the thickness of its furrowed stems; and for its ample, very glossy, bright, green leaves, and the unusual length of its peduncles. Its nearest affinity is B. dichotoma of Jacq. Collectanea and Icones, t. 619; and inhabitant of the Caraccas, but there the capsule has two small and one large wing, and the leaves are neither so glossy nor so glabrous. B. longipes is an inhabitant of Mexico, and was introduced lately to this country by the Rev. J. Huntly of Kimbolton, who communicated it to the Liverpool Botanic Garden. I am indebted to my friends, the Messrs. Shepherds, for a noble specimen, from a part of which the accompanying figure was taken. It flowered in the stove in the month of April 1830. |
