i88i.] DECORATIVE GREENHOUSE .PLANTS. 217 



IsTOTES ON DECORATIVE GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



THE ACACIA. 



The Acacia, in its varieties, ranks amongst the most handsome and 

 graceful, as well as most useful, of our flowering greenhouse plants. 

 The sprays of flowers are excellent for arranging in vases, and the 

 plants, when in flower, are admirable for general house decoration. 

 Their season of flowering being from January till June — a time when 

 all kinds of flowers, except forced ones, are generally scarce — renders 

 them all the more acceptable. The Acacia, like many more good green- 

 house plants, is not nearly so extensively cultivated as used formerly 

 to be the case, the fashion for foliage plants which has prevailed hav- 

 ing elbowed them aside. They are gradually, however, winning their 

 way back to public favour. Foliage plants are all very well in their 

 place, and are very useful, yet they lack the interest and attraction 

 which flowering plants possess. 



No doubt the fashion of table - decoration has been in a great 

 measure the cause of the neglect of flowering greenhouse plants. 

 Foliage plants are, as a rule, more suitable for this kind of work, 

 not to speak, of the much greater facility with which they can be 

 got up to the requisite size, suitable for such purposes. We think, 

 however, that horticultural societies have also been much to blame by 

 giving undue prominence to foliage plants, to the almost total exclu- 

 sion of the others. We have heard exhibitors remark that it was 

 almost useless to exhibit greenhouse flowering plants in a collection 

 of mixed stove or greenhouse plants, as they could not compete 

 against the fine-foliage stove-plants. When the accommodation is 

 sufficient, both may be grown in proportions to suit circumstances ; 

 but the evil is that, where the accommodation is limited, we are almost 

 of necessity confined to either one or the other kind of plants, only a few 

 of the hardier kinds of Palms, Dracaenas, ttc, being capable of cultiva- 

 tion in the ordinary greenhouse, and, on the other hand, the stove be- 

 ing much too hot for the general run of greenhouse plants. The fashion 

 for table-decoration is, no doubt, on the wane, so that in all pro- 

 bability "time, the great leveller,'' will in due course make things 

 right again. 



The list of Acacias is a very comprehensive one, consisting as it 

 does of about 300 varieties. Some of them are natives of tropical 

 climates, and some of more temperate climes. Most of the best of 

 our greenhouse varieties are natives of the Australian continent, and 

 none of them are very diflicult to cultivate. The soil best suited 

 to their wants consists of a mixture of equal parts of peat and good 

 fibry loam, with a liberal allowance of sharp sand. Some of the 

 varieties, such as Riceana, are admirably adapted for training up 

 rafters, pillars, or for covering a wall, and thus grown, are very strik- 



