398 THE GARDENER. [Sept. 



room. Of B. radicans there are two varieties, named minor and major. 

 The former is the brightest coloured, being a fine orange scarlet ; the 

 colour of grandiilora is orange, and capreolata is scarlet, — and they all 

 produce their flowers in summer. Other sorts which succeed well in 

 the greenhouse, being nearly hardy, are B. capensis and B. jasminoides, 

 both of which are not uncommonly named Tecoma instead of Bignonia, 

 — a synonym which is founded on a distinction in the fruit of the two 

 so-called genera, and which may be of some importance to botanists, 

 but is of no consequence to gardeners in any practical sense ; so that 

 in the garden at least we may dispense with the name Tecoma, and 

 reduce by one the chances of confusion and disorder. In the south, 

 where the summer is longer and warmer, the following kinds may be 

 tried in the greenhouse with good prospects of success, if the other 

 conditions of management are good : B. crucigera, yellow and scarlet ; 

 B. Tweediana, yellow ; B. venusta, orange scarlet ; and B. diversifolia, 

 purple and white. They are plants of the easiest culture. Strong, 

 vigorous growers, they do not succeed well in pots, but prefer being 

 planted out in good fibrous sandy loam ; and they should be thoroughly 

 drained — a point which, if carefully attended to, will conduce very 

 materially to the successful culture of the tropical species in cool 

 houses. They should be allowed to cover the space they are intended 

 to occupy as soon as possible. The flowers are produced on the shoots 

 of the current season from well-ripened buds of last year's formation, 

 after the manner of the Yine. This suggests that in the matter of 

 pruning they should be treated in the same way — not, however, on the 

 short-spur system, but by cutting back last year's shoots in winter or 

 spring to joints that are thoroughly ripened and have prominent buds. 

 They may be propagated by cuttings of the fully-ripened shoots put 

 into bottom-heat in spring, or by short-jointed, partially-ripened shoots 

 in summer in heat under a bell-glass. Some kinds also, perhaps all, 

 may be easily propagated by cuttings of the roots — the strongest roots 

 being cut into short lengths and planted rather thickly in pans in sandy 

 soil, or in sand in a propagating-bed in bottom-heat. 



Boronia. — These are handsome dwarf evergreen shrubs from New 

 South Wales. They are nearly all compact free-flowering plants, that 

 form most attractive objects for a long period in summer in the green- 

 house. The best and most popular kind, perhaps, is B. serrulata, the 

 excellent habit and free-flowering quality of which render it admirably 

 adapted for exhibition purposes, though it is not now so often seen in 

 collections of hard-wooded greenhouse plants at flower-shows as it once 

 was and still deserves to be. A selection of Boronias might be made 

 that would flower almost the whole year round, but it would embrace 

 several of the least interesting and pretty ones : the most ornamental 



