34 

 PORTULACA splendens. 



Garden Variety. 



We presume this to be a mere variety of Portulaca Thel- 

 lusonii, figured at plate 31 of our volume for 1840 ; but if so 

 it is one of singular beauty. Its origin is however unknown to 

 us. Seeds of it were purchased of Mr. Charlwood, in Covent 

 Garden, for the Horticultural Society, and in the Chiswick 

 Garden it flowered in the autumn of 1842. 



It is a charming tender annual, about a foot high, which 

 flowers most abundantly from July to September, if treated in 

 the following manner. 



The seed should be sown about the middle of March in 

 pots filled with a mixture of sandy loam, old lime rubbish, 

 and well decomposed cow-dung in equal portions. The 

 plants should be raised on a hot-bed, and when large enough 

 should be potted off singly into small sixty-pots, filled with the 

 same kind of compost as that in which the seeds were sown. 

 The young plants when potted should be again returned to the 

 hot-bed, and when well established, their pots being well 

 filled with roots, should be re-potted into upright thirty-twos, 

 draining the pots well, and covering the surface of the soil 

 with a thin covering of fine sand. 



After this the pots should be placed on the front shelf 

 of a greenhouse, where they are freely exposed to the sun, 

 but guarded from wind and rain, the first of which destroys 

 the flowers, and the latter the plants. Care must also be 

 taken in watering the plants ; as on this much depends 

 of the success in their management ; for they are very sub- 

 ject to damp off close to the soil. 



It is also possible to grow this Purslane in the open 

 ground in a fine dry season, if it is planted in a hot situation, 

 where it can be protected from heavy rain and wind, but it 

 will not, under such circumstances, display all its beautiful 

 effects. 



