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CULTUEE OF EUCHAEIS AMAZONICA. 



BY WILLIAM HOWAED, GARDENEK TO JAMES BEAND, ESQ., BALHAM. 



jUCHAEIS AMAZONICA is a free-growing evergreen 

 stove bulbous plant, with large thick dark green pointed 

 ovate leaves, averaging eighteen inches long b}'' nine 

 inches wide, their footstalks measuring about twelva 

 inches in length. The flowers are produced in a truss 

 of six or more, the truss measuring six inches across, borne on a 

 stem which lifts them just above the leaves. They are extremely 

 beautiful, sweet-scented, waxy, pure white, and of great substance. 

 So stout are they, indeed, that they may be worn in a lady's hair 

 for several evenings in succession, if the precaution is taken to place 

 them in water as soon as removed from the hair, and there let them 

 remain till wanted again for the toilette. Por that and other similar 

 purposes, such as decorating vases, and for groups of flowers at 

 festivals, it is one of the most beautiful and serviceable flowers 

 known. 



Being easily cultivated, and flowering twice a year, makes 

 Eucharis Amazonica an invaluable plant in all collections. It should 

 have plenty of pot room, and a liberal supply of water and liquid 

 manure twice a week. It should be kept during the growing season 

 in a stove well exposed to the sun. With about a dozen good large 

 plants, there will be little difficulty in having some of them in flower 

 all the year round. It is one of the easiest plants I know to bloom 

 well. My plants are not shifted about from place to place ; they 

 stand in a span-roofed stove, plunged in leaves, with a bottom-heat 

 of 70° to 75", and the temperature of the house, from November to 

 March, CO" to 70', and during the other eight months 70" to 85° by 

 day, reducing the temperature ten degrees by night. The result of 

 this treatment is that some of my plants are always in bloom. I 

 consider it quite a farce to shift the plants first into heat to grow, 

 and then to a cool airy place, keeping them dry, so as to hasten the 

 hardening process. If I had an aquatic house, I should let the pots 

 stand in water one inch deep all the year round. The plant is found 

 growing by the side of a river in Granada, and therefore aquatic 

 treatment must be natural for it. 



Pot the plants in equal parts of good rough lumpy loam, peat, 

 and rotten cow or sheep's dung; if at hand ; if not, some sweet 

 dung from an old hotbed, taking care it is free from worms, adding 

 a liberal supply of sharp silver or river sand, and a few small clean 

 crocks, so as to keep the soil sweet and porous. Drain the pots very 

 liberally, as nothing is so injurious to plants of any kind as bad 

 drainage, and particularly Eucharis. Nevertheless, though well- 

 drained, they delight in plenty of water, while they are growing 

 freely ; and they should be syringed twice a day with rain-water of 

 the same temperature as the house ; but they do not like to be 

 stagnated, as it makes the soil sour, and the roots in consequence 

 become unhealthy. The plants may be potted at any time of the 



