1871.] STEPHANOTIS FLORIBUNDA. 273 



for watering every time the plants require it, is not very clear to us. 

 Giving weak manure-water continually when the soil is exhausted, 

 appears, to say the least of it, a more reasonable mode of using it than 

 the plan of using it stronger and occasionally. Some people make a 

 point of faring almost sumptuously on Sundays, and going on " short 

 commons " during the remainder of the week ; and giving manure- 

 water in this manner bears some resemblance to it. We know that the 

 plant will not use more in one day than sufficient for its wants, leaving 

 the remainder for future use ; still, little and often we believe to be 

 best. Our ideas on this part of the subject are, give manure-water as 

 soon as a plant has filled its blooming-pot with roots ; give it every 

 time water is required, taking care that it is very weak at first, though it 

 ought to be of a stronger nature as the roots increase in quantity and 

 the plant in size. Treated thus, there is a certainty of giving enough 

 food ; but as the buds expand and the flowers develop, feeding ought 

 to be dispensed with, and water pure and simple used. 



We hope it will be understood that these Notes do not apply to 

 orchidaceous nor cryptogamous plants, nor to any species whose 

 natural habitat is a dry one at root. R. P. B. 



STEPHANOTIS FLORIBUISTDA. 



It is not my intention to give your correspondent golden rules respect- 

 ing this most useful climber, but simply to state how it has been 

 treated here, and with what success, leaving him to judge for himself 

 whether to be guided by it or not. About six or seven years back we 

 had, I should think, by all appearance, a very old plant standing in a 

 very low stove in a number-one pot : it grew freely, but flowered 

 little ; accordingly, we took off a cutting and struck it under a bell-glass 

 in the stove. The next year the low stove was pulled down to make 

 room for a larger one, and our old friend the Stephanotis was removed 

 to the greenhouse — a large old-fashioned house — where it remained 

 till autumn, when it fell a victim to the cold. The next February we 

 filled a clean number-one pot to within 3 or 4 inches of the top 

 with the following soil — peat, loam, leaf-mould, well-rotted dung, and 

 silver sand, in equal parts, using good drainage. In this we planted 

 our young Stephanotis, then a year old, and growing in a 6-inch 

 pot. The young plant was then placed in the stove on the slates ; 

 a stake was put into the soil to conduct the stem up to the glass, 

 w^hich is about 4 feet from the slates, where wires were already 

 stretched from end to end ready to support it. At the time this 

 was done the plant had only one shoot, but without pinching it 



