Paullinia
(named after Ch. Fr. Paulli, 1643-1742, a Danish botanist). ORD. Sapindaceae. This genus comprises about eighty species of climbing and twining, evergreen, stove shrubs, confined, with one or two exceptions, to the tropical regions of the Western hemisphere. Flowers pale, small, in axillary racemes; sepals five, concave, imbricate; petals four, bearing scales inside near the base; stamens eight. Fruit a pear-shaped, three-sided, one to three-celled capsule, with thin partitions. Leaves alternate, stipulate, compound, one to three, ternate or pinnate, or decompound; leaflets often toothed, dotted, or lined; petioles often winged. Paullinias thrive in a soil consisting of loam and leaf mould. Propagation is effected by cuttings, made of ripe shoots, and inserted under a bell glass, in bottom heat. The majority of the species are not worth cultivating, but the two here described will be found desirable subjects for the stove.
P. oceanica (Oceanian). l. slender, linear, equally or unequally pinnate; pinnae sometimes simple, ovate, inciso-dentate, sometimes ternate, with a larger terminal and two smaller lateral leaflets; sometimes there is a slight wing developed upon the rachis near the insertion of the upper pinnae. Stems dark-coloured. South Sea Islands, 1875. A garden name. P. thalictrifolia (Thalictrum-leaved). fl. very pale pink, 1/8in. in diameter, in small clusters. October. l. 4in. to 10in. long, deltoid-ovate in outline, three-ternately-pinnate, pubescent, the main rachis angular, partially flattened or obscurely winged; pinnae in six to eight pairs, narrow-ovate, the upper ones linear; pinnules four to eight pairs, 1/3in. to 2/3in. long. Stem terete, slender; branches velvety-tomentose. h. probably many feet. Rio de Janeiro, 1871. A beautiful climber. (B. M. 5879.) P. t. argentea (silvery). l. like those of the type, but suffused with a silvery white. A splendid variety. (B. H. 1880, p. 343.)