THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE, 333 



mass of shrubs, are conditions favourable to success. lu planting, 

 put the tubers nine inches deep, with their buds or crowns upper- 

 most. Leave them untouched several years, and they will become 

 fine specimens, throwing up their flowers freely one to three feet 

 high, and making a splendid display during the summer months. 

 The tallest kinds are A. aiirea, orange- red; A. pulchella, scarlet; 

 A. Jiccmanthus, vivid red ; A. ])sittacina, red and green ; A. Chillense, 

 various ; A. Brasiliense, red ; and A. argentea vittafa, red. and 

 yellow : the last grows six feet high, and is rather more tender than 

 the rest, but will do under a warm wall. The dwarfer kinds are A. 

 odorata rosea,rose ; A. pelegrina, red and blush, quite a gem. There 

 is, also, a white variety of this one, called alha, and A. tricolor, white, 

 crimson, and yellow. 



Lilt of the Valley. — Great is the dismay when a garden re- 

 fuses to produce flowers of the lovely lily of the valley. And some 

 gardens do refuse, no one know^s why. Perhaps bad management is 

 the real key to the failure. I never planted it in any kind of soil 

 or situation but it grew like a weed. Three years ago I put a few 

 small tufts that had been forced in pots, into a shady border close 

 beside my little garden-house, where I work all the summer, and 

 they have spread into a great sheet, and actually run out so far into 

 the gravel-walk that we tread upon them in going to and fro, and 

 they grow as well in the gravel as the loam. If any difiicultyis 

 met with in growing this plant in the open ground, prepare for it a 

 piece of deep, well-manured loam, plant at any time, but best of all 

 in autumn, and let the roots be only two or three inches deep, and 

 leave them alone. Tou will, no doubt, be well rewarded. If the 

 little bulbs are put in singly, a foot apart, they will meet by the 

 second season after planting, and flower abundantly. The wa^ to 

 grow it in pots, and to force it for early bloom, has been described 

 by Mr. Howard in a former issue of the Flokal Wokld. It may 

 be proper, however, to add that the best roots for forcing are those 

 imported from the Continent by the dealers in bulbs — they are larger, 

 and every way better than can visually be grown in English gardens. I 

 have a pretty collection of varieties, which I keep in pots, and they 

 come in usefully sometimes for exhibiting, and are charming subjects 

 for the decoration of the greenhouse. Those with variegated leaves 

 I grow in sandy peat, and keep them several years in the same pots, 

 preferring to shift them to larger sizes as the pots are filled, to shaking 

 them out, as a certain degree of starvation preserves the beauty of 

 the leaves. The prettiest of these is Convrillaria majalls foliis 

 striatis, the leaves are elegantly variegated with golden lines. 

 Another is called Foliis margiuatis, having elegantly-variegated mar- 

 gins. There is a pretty double-flowered variety called Jlore pleno, 

 and there is a red-flowered kind called ritbra rosea, which has a deli- 

 cate tinge of colour. It makes a change, but it is certainly not more 

 beautiful than the white kind. 



Ckow]S' Imperial. — This, the Fritillaria, can be grown well in 

 any common border, but the smaller kinds are better adapted for 

 pot culture than the open ground, and they require a sandy peat 

 soil. The common Crown Imperial, Fritillaria imjierialis, requires a 



