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Leea (Commemorative of James Lee)

(commemorative of James Lee, 1715-1795, a well-known nurseryman at Hammersmith, who did a good deal to popularise the Linnaean system). ORD. Ampelideoe. A genus of about a score species of stove shrubs or small trees, natives of tropical Asia and Africa, and the Mascarene Islands (rare in Australia). Flowers red, yellow, or green; inflorescence corymbosely cymose. Leaves alternate, usually very large, simple, or one, two, or three-pinnate. Tendrils absent. Leeas require a rich loam, and succeed best in a moist stove. Some of them are much grown in the tropics for the beauty of their fruits. Under cultivation, however, in this country, but few are worth growing. L. amabilis is a very handsome foliage plant.

L. amabilis (lovely).* l. unequally pinnate, on long channelled leafstalks; stipules large, leafy; leaflets in two or three pairs, stipellate, all more or less lanceolate, rounded at the base, acute or acuminate, sparingly serrate; upper surface of velvety texture, and deep bronzy-green colour, with a rather broad central white stripe irregularly indented at the margin; lower surface claret-red, with a translucent central green stripe. Borneo, 1880. (G. C. n. s., xvii. 493.) L. coccinea (scarlet). fl. scarlet, in dense cymes. Summer. l. tripinnate, glabrous, dark green. Probably one of the dwarfest of the Leeas; it commences to flower when about 1ft. high. Tropical Asia. (B. M. 5299.)