TO THE FLOWER GARDEN. 211 



PELARGOXIUM. Stork's Bill. [Geraniaceae.] These 

 are commonly known as Geraniums, but botanists distinguish 

 between Pelargoniums and Geraniums, the former having 

 irregular flowers (petals not all alike in form, &c.) and ten 

 stamens, the latter regular flowers (petals alike in size, form , 

 &c.) and five stamens. This arrangement brings the popular 

 flowers now so much grown, and familiarly known as Gera- 

 niums, into Pelargonium. The varieties now grown have 

 sprung, by a many years' course of hybridisation and cross- 

 breeding, from a race of shrubby and tuberous-rooted kinds 

 which are natives of the Cape of Good Hope. The Pelar- 

 gonium, a universal favourite, is a greenhouse plant, growing 

 well in a soil composed of one-half loam of rotted turves, one- 

 fourth turfy peat, and one-fourth well-decomposed horse or 

 cowdung, rotted into mould. New varieties are raised from 

 seed, and the established favourite sorts are propagated by 

 cuttings. The seed is sown as soon as ripe, and the young 

 plants, when large enough to handle, may be pricked out four 

 or five in a pot, and when they have grown larger they may 

 be separated, and put one in a three-inch pot. They should 

 be nursed on in a greenhouse during the summer and autumn, 

 and the stronger ones may be transferred, when well rooted, 

 into five-inch pots, the others remaining in the smaller size. 

 They must be wintered on a shelf of the greenhouse, where 

 they may stand very near the glass, and in an open and airy 

 position. In a house where such seedlings are wintered the 

 temperature must be kept comfortable, that is, warmish and 

 dryish during that season. If this accommodation cannot be 

 given it is better to sow in spring, although a season may 

 often be lost. If sown in spring all the plants should bloom 

 the next year. To propagate from cuttings, the trimmings of 

 the plants, which are cut down close after blooming about 

 July, are used. The plants are to be cut down within an eye 

 or two of the last pruning, so as to form a proper skeleton for 

 growing into a good-shaped shrubby plant the next year. The 

 pieces cut off' will make plants. Cut the lower end clean off" 

 close below a joint, which latter is to he put in the ground, 

 and another joint or two be left above the surface. The 

 cuttings will strike in the open garden, merely covered with 

 a hand-glass and occasionally watered : a light compost is 



