Downingia
(named in honour of A. J. Downing, a promoter of horticulture). SYN. Clintonia, under which generic name the two species below-mentioned are generally included, but erroneously so. ORD. Campanulaceae. Very ornamental annuals. Flowers bilabiate. Leaves small, linear-lanceolate. They are used with great effect in summer flower-gardening, and but little care is necessary to insure success. Seeds should be sown in a spent hotbed, in March, thinned out, so as to give the plants room, and kept growing till May, when they may be transferred to the open border. D. pulchella is especially pretty for hanging baskets.
D. elegans (elegant).* fl. blue, having a large white streak on the base, solitary, axillary, sessile. Summer. l. sessile, ovate, threeveined. h. 6in. North-west America, 1827. (B. R. 1241.) D. pulchella (fair).* fl. rich blue, with yellowish eyes; upper segments of corolla ovate, acute, divaricate; middle segment of lower lip longest. Summer. l. obtuse. h. 6in. California, &c., 1827. SYN. Clintonia pulchella. (B. R. 1909.)