THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 29!) 



tufts are very good when grown in pots from autumn-sown plants. 

 Three plants in a pot will be sufficient. I have had single plants 

 do remarkably well, especially when turned out of their pots into 

 beds. The purple variety also produces good heads of blooms. 



Gilia capitata and tricolor. — The first of the two is a rather 

 straggling grower, and tall, but can be so trained as to make a very 

 good pot plant. Its singular heads of bloom make it very desirable 

 as a change ; it can be grown either singly or three in a batch. 

 The la^t being much more slender in habit, you may plant four or 

 five plants of it in a pot, or less ; it blooms in abundance, and the 

 colours of the flowers are very pleasing and attractive. 



Erysimum Peroffskianum. — The chief recommendation of this 

 annual is its hardy constitution, and its colour being orange-yellow. 

 Its habit is such that it will be seen to better advantage when there 

 are four or five plants grown in a pot. 



Saponaria Calabrica. — This variety is very interesting and 

 effective, producing in succession quantities of starry-shaped and 

 pink-coloured flowers. Three plants will be sufficient for each pot. 

 It is dwarf, and of a trailing habit. 



As a companion to the above, grow the lovely Forget-me-nots, 

 Jli/osotis alpestris, M. alpestris alba, and M. sylvatica. 



CULTURE OF SELAGINELLAS. 



BY GEORGE FAIRBAIRX, 

 Head Gardener, Sion House, Isleworth. 



HE extreme usefulness and beauty of this class of plants, 

 and the numerous inquiries received for directions for 

 their culture, must be my excuse for offering a few 

 hints upon their management. They are the easiest 

 managed plants that come within the province of the 

 horticulturalist. There is, however, a right way and a wrong way, 

 and I hope to put my readers in the proper track by offering a few 

 useful suggestions. 



I shall not attempt to write an elaborate treatise, for the whole 

 code of treatment can be told in a few words. There are two dis- 

 tinct classes of Selaginellas, one having a soft herbaceous growth, 

 and the other a semi-shrubby habit. Without noting this distinc- 

 tion in passing, I should very likely lead my readers astray. The 

 stock can be propagated and increased any day during the year, but 

 the most suitable season is the period between February and 

 November. The species partaking of an herbaceous growth, like 

 apoda, denticulate, and formosa, root freely along the stem, and 

 are therefore the easiest to propagate ; and the others, of which 

 riticulosa and Wildenovii may be taken as a type, do not root, and 

 require dividing in much the same way as a fern with a creeping 

 rhizome, and, as a matter of course, more care must be exercised in 

 their manipulation. 



