THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 259 



THE EOMAN HTACIXTH AND NAECISSUS. 



BY "WILLIAM GAEDINEE. 



|0E, some five or six years past, I have grown a good 

 batcli of these two flowers for blooming during the 

 months of Kovember and December ; and they are 

 usually so much admired, that I think a few should be 

 grown wherever winter flowers are in request. 

 The Roman Hyacinth, it may be said for the information of those 

 who are unacquainted with it, produces very small spikes of pure 

 white flowers ; and blooms so early that by forcing the bulbs gently 

 it may be had in bloom in IsTovember. The bulbs cost about 

 threepence each when bought by fifty or the hundred. 



The Double Roman Narcissus has double white flowers, and may 

 be had in bloom at Christmas with the assistance of very little arti- 

 ficial heat. The bulbs cost about twopence-halfpenny each when 

 bought by the dozen; the cost of fifty or so of each is therefore very 

 trifling. I invariably buy a hundred of each, as the flowers are so 

 useful for bouquets, as well as for decorating the drawing-room 

 and conservatory. 



They are both grown in precisely the same manner. Tlie bulbs 

 are bouglit the first week in September, and potted immediately on 

 their being received, in five-inch pots,, three bulbs in each. The 

 pots are prepared in the usual manner, and a mixture of loam, leaf- 

 mould, and manure is employed. The bulbs are buried in the soil, 

 just deep enough to leave the base of the neck visible. The pots are 

 placed upon coal ashes, and covered in the usual manner ; and those 

 required in flower early, are taken from the plunge bed directly the 

 roots make their appearance round the outside of the ball of soil, 

 and plunged in a brisk bottom-heat. I generally prepare a pit for 

 them by filling it to within nine inches of the glass, with leaves 

 gathered in the autumn. The pots are plunged to the rim, and the 

 warmth derived from the leaves soon starts the bulbs into active 

 growth. I have found it, as a rule, to be desirable to place those 

 required in bloom in November, in the forcing pit about the middle 

 of October. I divide the stock into two equal portion?, and place 

 the second portion in the forcing pit directly after the first has been 

 removed to cooler quarters. By this arrangement a good succession 

 oT bloom is insured uutil the earliest of the forced hyacinths and 

 narcissus of the ordinary type are in flower. In contributing this 

 note on these flowers, I feel assured that all who follow my advice 

 and grow a few, will be delighted with the result. 



Fkuitixg of Fremoxtia Californica. — A large specimen of this Landsotnc 

 shrub in the Royal Botanic Gardt-n at Kew, flowered profusely this spring, and is 

 now bearing ripe fruit. As it is still very little known, we would observe that it is 

 a deciduous shrub, with small lobed leaves, and handsome pure yellow flowers, 

 about two inches in diameter. The specimen in question is growing against a wall, 

 but it would probably succeed without protection of any kind. 



September. 



