, and about half a dozen of the
largest bulbs left, all of which will most probably flower at the usual
time, the end of March or beginning of April.

PARKINSON, who most admirably describes this and the _racemosus_,
enumerates three varieties, viz. the _white_, the _blush-coloured_, and
the _branched_; the first is frequently imported with other bulbs from
Holland, the second and third we have not seen; the latter, if we may
judge from PARKINSON'S _fig._ in his _Parad._ is a most curious plant,
and was obtained, as CLUSIUS reports, from seeds of the white variety;
whether it now exists is deserving of inquiry.

The _botryoides_ differs from the _racemosus_, in having its leaves
upright, its bunch of flowers smaller, the flowers themselves larger,
rounder, of a paler and brighter blue.

[158]

HIBISCUS ROSA SINENSIS. CHINA-ROSE HIBISCUS.

_Class and Order._

MONADELPHIA POLYANDRIA.

_Generic Character._

_Calyx_ duplex, exterior polyphyllus. _Capsula_ 5-locularis, polysperma.

_Specific Character and Synonyms._

HIBISCUS _Rosa Sinensis_ foliis ovatis acuminatis serratis, caule
arboreo. _Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14. Murr. p. 629._ _Ait. Hort.
Kew. p. 629._

ALCEA javanica arborescens, flore pleno rubicundo. _Breyn. cent. 121. t.
56._

HIBISCUS _javanica_. _Mill. Dict. ed. 6. 4to._ by whom cultivated in
1731.

[Illustration: No 158]

RUMPHIUS in his _Herbarium Amboinense_ gives an excellent
account of this beautiful native of the East-Indies, accompanied by a
representation of it with double flowers, in which state it is more
particularly cultivated in all the gardens in India, as well as China;
he informs us that it grows to the full size of our hazel, and that it
varies with white flowers.

The inhabitants of India, he observes, are extremely partial to whatever
is red, they consider it as a colour which tends to exhilarate; and
hence they not only cultivate this plant universally in their gardens,
but use its flowers on all occasions of festivity, and even in their
sepulchral rites: he mentions also an oeconomical purpose to which the
flowers are applied, little consistent with their elegance and beauty,
that of blacking shoes, whence their name of _Rosae calceolariae_; the
shoes, after the colour is imparted to them, are rubbed with the hand,
to give them a gloss, and which thereby receives a blueish tinge, to
discharge which they have recourse to lemon juice.

With us