I873.J NOTES ON HARDY FLOWERS. 505 



■when the leaves decay, protecting the beds during winter with some 

 dry litter, tan, or any such material that is most handy. Cultivated 

 in pots in pits during winter, they are very beautiful ornaments of the 

 greenhouse in early summer. 



Mirabilis Jalapa {Marvel of Peru). — This was formerly an immense 

 favourite with flower-loving people, but now could hardly be found in 

 a AYeek^s journey in gardens. Yet it is one of the most showy out- 

 of-doors plants that could be named, and though not quite hardy 

 enough to endure in all parts in the open ground, there is no con- 

 siderable difficulty in keeping it, either by lifting the roots and storing 

 them in-doors in winter, or by sowing seeds in spring. A plant of 

 strikingly showy character such as this is, flowering also profusely for 

 four or five months in summer and autumn, should be a general 

 favourite ; and no doubt it would be if some of our leading gardeners 

 would only take it up and give it a fair chance of asserting its value as 

 an ornament of mixed shrubbery borders. It is very varied in the 

 colour of the flowers, some being yellow, others red, purple, and white. 

 There are two distinct strains, — one having purple and white flowers, 

 the individual flowers on the same plant being either simple purple or 

 simple white, or variegated with the two colours in the same flower ; 

 the other is the red and yellow strain, in which the flowers are varie- 

 gated in the same promiscuous manner as in the other. The imion of 

 the two colours in the same flower is the most usual condition in both 

 cases. The culture of Marvel of Peru is very simple. In southern 

 warm parts, the seed may be sown in warm borders in March in the 

 open ground without protection, but will start earlier, and consequently 

 flower earlier, if a hand-glass is put over them, and they are well 

 attended to with water. They should be transplanted as early as they 

 are fit to handle, so as to conduce to the formation of plenty of fibrous 

 roots. Sowing out-of-doors is not practicable in northern or cold 

 parts ; the plants will grow but very slowly, and flower so late that 

 frost overtakes them before they have attained any degree of perfec- 

 tion. Sowing in pots in heat — say a nice hotbed, such as is employed 

 to strike cuttings of soft-wooded bedding-plants and to raise seedhngs 

 of tender annuals — is the most satisfactory way of rearing young plants. 

 The seed germinates quickly, and as soon as they are fit to handle 

 they should be pricked off from the seed-pots into pans or boxes ; or 

 better still, they may be pricked into another hotbed, which need only, 

 however, be a very moderately warm one, with a temperature of about 

 60°, and there they may remain till they can be planted in their per- 

 manent quarters in May. When they have taken root after being 

 pricked out, they should be gradually inured to more air till they are 

 fully hardened ofi*, and so that short sturdy growth may be secured ; 



