524 THE GARDENER. [Nov. 



American varieties may be too tender to stand our severe winters, yet 

 by engrafting them upon hardy stocks of varieties grown in this 

 country, success is likely to be the result. 



Now a note or two regarding a plant wliicli for about seventeen 

 years I have grown here in the greenliouse : the name of it is Coleus 

 orientalis. It flowers and seeds most profusely. I saved some seed 

 last year, and thought by sowing it early in spring in heat, and get- 

 ting it pricked out in the same way as Verbena venosa or Lobelia 

 speciosa is done, it would be in readiness for the bedding-out season. 

 I am very much pleased with the experiment, for it has succeeded 

 admirably this season, which cannot be regarded as a highly favour- 

 able one for flowers, any more than it has hitherto been for the corn 

 crop. To those who do not know it, or may not have seen it, I will 

 try and describe it as well as I can. It is exceedingly dwarf and com- 

 X)act in its habit of growth, with broad foliage of a lively green, throw- 

 ing up in the centre a strong robust spike from which issue several 

 lateral spikes. In colour it is of a bright yellow, much more so than 

 Golden Gem Calceolaria. It commences flowering at the base, and con- 

 tinues flowering up to the termination of the spike. As a pot plant 

 it requires staking, but as a bedding-out plant this is not necessary. 



Just one other note and I have done for the present. Vallota pur- 

 purea is deservedly a popular pot plant, but sometimes it is over-pot- 

 ted. I have about a dozen 9-incb pots, in each of which there are three 

 bulbs or plants : they have not got a shift for two years, and they could 

 not possibly have flowered finer, as they are in great perfection of 

 bloom and foliage at the present time, but they like good feeding, 

 which they get with soot and dovecot manure in liquid form. 



H. Rose. 



THE VARIETIES OF CALANTHE VEITCHII. 



We do not know how many varieties there are in cultivation of this 

 fine and most useful winter-flowering Orchid ; but there are, at least, 

 two varieties, and one of them is very much superior to the other. It 

 is more robust in its growth, and in colour much more brilliant. The 

 pale and inferior variety is easily known, even by the shape of the 

 bulbs, every one of which has the peculiarity of being very much con- 

 tracted just about its middle — so much so, in fact, that it is very easily 

 broken through. Growers who happen to have only this fiddle-shaped 

 variety should try and procure the other, for it is much finer. We 

 had a considerable number of the inferior kind at one time — indeed 

 the major part of our stock was of it — but have entirely discarded 

 it, and grow only the darker variety, that has no contraction in its 

 bulbs. 



