1879.] LUCULIA GRATISSIMA. 395 



left to take their chance of what ripening the season accomplishes 

 without artificial aid. Experienced growers are not likely to neglect 

 the use of the means at their command, but it may be necessary to 

 urge on the inexperienced the absolute necessity that this year exists 

 to apply fire-heat, and keep up a circulation of dry, warm air about the 

 wood and foliage for the next month or six weeks, or in fact until the 

 wood is solid and brown. The character of next year's crops depends 

 greatly on this : indeed it will give the foundation of the superstructure 

 of next year's crop, which it is impossible to rear without it. Expe- 

 rienced men are alive to this necessity this autumn, if ever they were. 

 In some cases indeed the fuel may be grudged, and gardeners would 

 do well in such cases to point out to their employers the necessity for 

 such means, and the consequences of withholding it. 



LUCULIA GRATISSIMA. 



This is a magnificent evergreen shrub or tree, found growing in great 

 luxuriance on some of the smaller hills in the Valley of Xepaul, 

 and generally in rather exposed situations, where it produces its 

 sweet-scented, delicate, pink-coloured flowers in profusion nearly the 

 whole year round. 



It is surprising how very few places include this grand old plant. 

 It is only met with occasionally in old-established places where the 

 glass structures are on a large scale, and in nurserymen's collections. 

 This ought not to be the case. Considering the merits of the plant 

 and the easy way in which it can be grown and flowered, one fully ex- 

 panded truss of flowers being enough to fill a whole house with its 

 perfume. Cuttings of the young firm shoots, taken off with a heel, 

 or at the third or fourth joint, and inserted thinly round the edges 

 of 4-inch pots, in a compost of light loam, peat, and leaf-mould, 

 with a good addition of sharp sand, made firm, and plunged in a 

 brisk bottom-heat, strike very freely if covered with a bell-glass. 

 They must be carefully attended to as regards watering, shading, &c; 

 and as soon as they are fairly rooted, turn them out of the cutting pots 

 very cautiously, so as not to break any of the young fibres, and pot 

 them singly into 3-inch pots in soil composed of equal parts of fibry 

 peat and light turfy loam, with a liberal addition of silver-sand and 

 charcoal broken up into small bits and well mixed together. 



After potting plunge them in a gentle hotbed, and water them 

 with water a few degrees warmer than the propagating-bed, to help 

 to warm the soil in the pots, and shade them from stroDg sun, and 

 keep them close for a few days until they show signs of animation, 

 after which the shading can be dispensed with, and the temperature 



