318 



JOURNAL OF HORTICOLTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



C October 7, 1876. 



be planted in a south border along the front of a greenhouse, 

 and G inches deep, the soil being well drained ; if the soil is to 

 be prepared, three parts sandy fibrous loam, one part each leaf 

 mould, sandy peat, and silver sand, well incorporated, answers 

 for pots or borders. The bulbs should be 2 or 3 inches apart. 

 A covering of dry leaves, with a little soil over them to keep 

 the leaves stationary, or still better is a straw shutter or a 

 framework of laths thatched, as they throw off the wet as well 

 aa afford protection from frost, and are easily withdrawn in 

 mild weather and replaced in cold. Planted in October Ixias 

 will bloom in or soon after May, and continue some time ; and 

 another batch planted in January in a warm, sheltered, dry 

 spot, raising the soil, if the ground be wet, a foot high, and 

 the bulbs put in 4 inches deep, and mulched with 2 inches of 

 partially decayed leaves, or cocoa refuse, and with shutters to 

 throw off heavy rains or snow and to use in severe weather, 

 wUl lay the foundation for a display in June or July and to 

 August of the finest flowers for cutting that ever graced a 

 boudoir. For pots put five bulbs or six in a 6-inch pot, well 

 drained, the bulbs an inch deep, the soil made firm about 

 them, and after potting place them in a cold frame plunged in 

 ashes, which will afford some moisture, and do not water until 

 the foliage appears, when they may be moved to the shelves of 

 a greenhouse or light airy position, then water carefully at first, 

 increasing the supply with the growth. They will flower nicely, 

 but they will not be as fine as those flowering outside. Varie- 

 ties are very numerous, and all are good. 



Teiionhs are good alike in borders or grown in pots with 

 cool treatment. The habit of growth is that of the Sparaxis, 

 but the bloom differs in being self-coloured. The varieties 

 are becoming rather numerous ; parti-coloured flowers are 

 being added, as in Brilliant, orange, dark centre, spotted, 

 and Longiflora rosea, blusb, white and rose, which add no 

 beauty; but Eclair, scarlet, and Prince Alfred, white, are good 

 additions; still the best of the family are T. crocata, orange, 

 and T. aurea. orange yellow. The former blooms earlier, and 

 grown in pots blooms in June or earlier, according to the tem- 

 perature, and T. aurea comes in at the middle of July if 

 brought forward in a greenhouse. Outdoors they flower after 

 those under glass, and give a succession of blooms for a long 

 time, commencing in August and continuing until frost. A 

 dozen bulbs in a 10-inch pot, potted early in October, water- 

 ing moderately until the growth appears, but keeping moist 

 as they are more or less active alway, increasing the supply of 

 water with the growth, letting it be copious when in free 

 growth, and brought forward in gentle heat, keeping in a cool 

 house until January, then introducing to gentle moist heat, 

 with a light airy position but plenty of moisture. T. crocata 

 will flower during the spring and early summer months, and 

 if kept from frost and brought on in a cold pit or house it will 

 flower later and keep up a succession until those in the open 

 ground come in. Half a dozen bulbs may be grown in a 7-inch 

 pot, and in potting let them be about IJ inch deep, those in 

 the open ground about 3 inches deep, and afford a mulch of 

 leaf soil in winter over the clumps. The soil named for Ixias 

 suits Tritonias, or turfy loam will grow them well with the 

 addition of a third part of vegetable soil and a sixth of sand. 

 They like a moist soil, but well drained. — G. Abbey. 



NEAR AND AMONG THE ANTEDILUVIANS. 



Most satisfactory is it to me having things congruous about 

 me. I am in search after things old, so I lodge in a terrace 

 with an Anglo-Saxon name— Holme Lea, the Wooded Meadow ; 

 and certain is it that the whole region round about was a 

 forest, that is in the time of the ancient Britons, whose name 

 of the place is still retained. They called it Lym from the 

 streamlet on the west bank of which it is, and that they termed 

 " y nant Llym," the Rapid Stream. One of the evidences of its 

 forest surroundings is afforded by the submarine trees found 

 abundantly in the liaa between Lyme and the mouth of the 

 river Char. It was a woody region even in antediluvian times, 

 for on the table before me aa I write is part of the branch of 

 an Oak firmly bedded in a slab of lias, that geological form- 

 ation from whence the Ichthyosauri and other old-world 

 monsters were dug, which now are in the British Museum. 

 The town is built upon that lias, and in walking along the sea- 

 shore towards Charmouth you may find many remains of 

 animals and plants that were alive before the Flood. I may 

 be permitted to dwell on one as not irrelevant to your columns, 

 I mean the Coprolites. Their name signifies petrified dung, 

 and certain it is that they are the excrements of the lohthy- 



osaurua ; they are found within the fossil skeleton of that 

 animal. They are shaped like a kidney Potato. I have one 

 before me ; it is nearly 4 inches long, fully 2 inches broad at 

 the widest, tapering to each end, and 1 inch thick. It retains 

 the marka given to it when passing through the animal's in- 

 testines, as well as the undigested scales of the fish on which 

 it subsisted. 



Coprolites were analysed in the laboratory of the London 

 ManureJCompany, and proved to contain in 100 lbs., besides a 



Fig. 70. — Lobelia urens. 



small portion of unimportant ingredients, 56 Iba. of phosphate 

 of lime, 14 Iba. of phosphate of iron, and 21 lbs. of carbonate 

 of lime (chalk). These ingredients are what were to be ex- 

 pected, as we know the food the Ichthyosauri and other marine 

 antediluvians fed upon — that food was fish, and in many 

 coprolites, as well as that I have described, are found their 

 scales, and of some so undigested that M. Agassiz at once pro- 

 nounced one to have been from the body of the Pholidophorua 

 limbatus. The bones and scales of fish contain the phosphatea 

 and carbonate found in coprolites. They are so abundant in 

 places on this seashore that they might be mistaken for 

 scattered Potatoes. This abundance — and it prevails in other 



