19'2 GLENN y's handbook 



the leaves at the slightest touch or disturbance. If a leaf be 

 touched it falls down, and the leaflets close ; and if the whole 

 })lant be shaken or jerked all the leaves immediately close and 

 hang down. The seeds are sown in a hotbed in March, and 

 potted off as soon as they are large enough to handle into 

 small-sized three-inch pots, in a light soil of sandy peat and 

 loam. They are best kept in a hot frame till June, when 

 they may be placed in any part of the stove or in a warm 

 greenhouse. They must be shifted from small to larger pots 

 as required. They seed freely enough ; but when they are 

 grown for seed they are sown in February, potted off in 

 March, and are in full flower and seeding long before those 

 sown in March. They are also increased by cuttings in sand 

 under bell-glasses in heat. M. sensitiva is not so irritable as 

 M. pudica. They are only grown as curiosities. There are 

 many other Mimosas, chiefly shrubs of little interest. 



MIMULUS. Monkey Flower. [Scrophulariacese.] Showy 

 herbaceous plants, mostly perennial ; some small Musk plants 

 are annual. The ornamental garden Mimuluses are mostly 

 seedling varieties raised by florists, the offspring of M. luteus, 

 M. guttatus, and M. variegatus, on the one hand, and of M. 

 cardlnalis and M. roseus on the other, and little trace of the 

 originals now remains. These races are fugitive, the varieties 

 of to-day continually giving place to others of some supposed 

 superiority. Rich loamy soil, or, indeed, ordinary garden soil 

 if good, will grow them well ; but they like a damp, cool, and 

 somewhat shady situation in summer, and are the better for 

 some slight shelter in winter. A reserve should be kept in 

 pots, protected in cold frames through the winter. M. mos- 

 chatus is a favourite pot plant for the window : it is quite 

 hardy in sheltered situations, and grows readily in pots of 

 rich mould. The varieties are multiplied by division, and 

 new varieties are obtained from seeds, which, if sown in heat 

 in March, and nursed on in frames, will come into bloom in 

 the course of the summer. Seeds are freely produced. 



MINA. [Convolvulaceae.] A pretty greenhouse climbing 

 annual or biennial. Its flowers are produced, unlike most 

 Convolvuli, in one-sided forked racemes, and are of so 

 singular a contracted form at the mouth, that were the leaves 

 removed its relation would hardly be suspected. The seeds 



