Luhea
(named after C. Van de Luhe, a German botanist, who wrote on the plants of the Cape of Good Hope at the end of the eighteenth century). SYN. Alegria. ORD. Tiliaceae. A small genus (about sixteen species) of handsome stove trees, allied to Sparmannia, confined to the tropical parts of the New World. Flowers white or pink, showy, in axillary cymes or in terminal panicles. Leaves often dentate, stellate-tomentose underneath, on short footstalks. The species thrive in a compost of fibry peat and sandy loam. Propagated by cuttings of half-ripened shoots, inserted in sand, under a bell glass, in bottom heat. Probably the species here described is the only one yet introduced. L. paniculata (panicled). fl. rosy-white; cymes at the tips of the branches disposed in a large leafy panicle. March and April. l. broad-ovate, bluntish or acutish, cordate at the base, unequally serrate. h. 10ft. to 20ft. Brazil, 1828.