This is a high-resolution digital download of Plate 4172 from Curtis's Botanical Magazine. The original illustration was hand-colored in the 1800s. This listing includes both the botanical image and its accompanying description tab.

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TAB. 4172

BEGONIA ALBO-COCCINEA. Scarlet and White-flowered Begonia, or Elephant's Ear.

Nat. Ord. BEGONIACEÆ.-MONCECIA POLYANDRIA.

Generic Character (Vide supra Tab. 4131.)

BEGONIA albo-coccinea; acaulis, foliis oblique ovatis obtusissimis subre- niformibus peltatis coriaceo-carnosis sublobato-sinuatis glaberrimis longitudine petiolorum, petiolis appresso - hirsutis, sepalis 2 exteri- oribus rotundatis (extus coccineis), reliquis minoribus obovatis (albis), fructu turbinato trialato alis latis subæqualibus. sometimes tinged with blush. Stamens as in the Genus. Female-flowers with similar sepals to the male, except that the inner ones are sometimes increased to three. Fruit with three, broad, nearly equal angles. • Thrifty Whiskers One of the most lovely of this beautiful Genus, which we cannot too much recommend for cultivation to all admirers of hothouse plants, blooming throughout the spring and summer months; the flowers numerous, white and coral-red. Our plants were raised in the Royal Gardens of Kew, from seeds sent from India by Strachan, Esq., of Twickenham, Surrey. -

Botanical Description Stem none; or so short, that the plant may fairly

be called stemless. From a short, thick column, spring the stout, red-colored leaf-stalks, two to five or six inches long, terete, with scattered appressed hairs on the surface; their base sheathed with large, lax, membranaceous stipules. Leaves from two to five or six inches in diameter; in general the length being about equal to that of the petiole, quite glabrous, obliquely ovate, very obtuse, approaching to reniform, the margins slightly reflexed, sinuate, and unequally sublobate, peltate, the point of insertion excentric, and towards the prin- cipal sinus. The texture is thick, between fleshy and cori- aceous. Scapes a foot to a foot and a half high, twice as long as, or more, than the leaves, terete, red, branched above into a many-flowered, spreading, lax panicle, with small bracteas at the setting on of the branches. Male flowers of four sepals; two outer and larger ones, nearly orbicular, red externally, white within: two inner, smaller, obovate, white,