THE FLORAL WORLD 



AND 



GARDEN GUIDE. 



AUOUST, 1869. 

 PLEBOMAS. 



"WITH F1GUBE OF PLEROMA SARMENTOSA. 



| HE beautiful plant represented in the accompanying plate 

 has peculiar claims on the attention of amateurs, for it 

 is the only one of its family that can be well grown in 

 a greenhouse, all the otner known species being stove 

 plants that will not without harm endure such low 

 degrees of temperature as P. sarmentosa may be safely kept in. 



Pleromas are favourites with exhibitors of stove plants, for they 

 are at once easy to manage, and remarkably effective when well done ; 

 their numerous purple or deep blue flowers being abundantly pro- 

 duced, and affording most acceptable contrasts to those of the Alla- 

 mandas, Dipladenias, and Ixoras that are usually grown in the same 

 house with them. As there is no occasion for a lengthy notice of 

 the plant figured, a brief treatise on the cultivation of Pleroma may 

 be opportune and useful to accompany the plate. 



These plants are all natives of the central parts of the South 

 American continent, the majority having been introduced from 

 Brazil. They are all fast growing and free-flowering plants when 

 well-managed, rarely giving trouble in any stage of their growth, if 

 rightly managed; but in common with many other valuable plants, it 

 is easy to kill them by mismanagement. The stove species, of which 

 JP. eleqans, an old favourite, may be regarded as the type, require a 

 temperature of 45 D to 55° all the winter, and 60° to 80 3 all the 

 summer. We pronounce them stove plants in a general way because 

 of the mischief that often results from the use of the word " green- 

 house" in a work of this kind, and in order to guard our readers 

 against supposing that a house in which azaleas and heaths are quite 

 at home, would do for any of them. The fact is they are truly 

 cool stove plants, a roasting heat is as harmful to the plant as a tem- 

 perature too low, so while we will continue to use the word " stove" 

 to prevent amateurs who have only an ordinary greenhousp devoted 



VOL. IV. NO. VIII. 15 



