HETEROCENTRON elegans. Spanish shawl. Mexico to Honduras. This is a puzzling omission from catalogs past. Though it borders on being too tender to grow here, I have somehow kept it going for many years. This is a relative of the princess flower (Tibouchina) but resembles it only in the form of the flowers. The plant is only semi-shrubby and trailing, also branching freely to form a broad mat (or, if it is elevated, a cascade) of slender stems. These are lined by broad, dark leaves only ½-1" long. Clustered at the shoot tips in summer are many broad-petalled flowers, each about an inch broad and colored deep magenta. This is a pretty plant for shade gardens and rock walls but needs protection–from hot sun away from the coast, from drying winds, and certainly from hard frosts (its minimum is somewhere between 20^o and 25^oF.). It should also be kept moist.