274 glenny's handbook 



coiiventionally stylerl beauty. It inay he grown in the window 

 of a living-room, planted in a deep clear glass cylinder, the 

 root being fixed among some loamy soil at the bottom, and 

 the glass kept filled with clear water, which should be changed 

 or overflowed about once a week. The plant grows entirely 

 under water, except its tiny ilowers, which, attached to the 

 roots by long thread-like spii-ally-turned stalks, just reach the 

 surface to develope themselves. The species is V. spiralis : 

 it may be grown in a hothouse or greenhouse, or in the open 

 cistern, or in a window, with ecjual facility. 



VALLOTA. [Amaryllidaceae.] Beautiful greenhouse 

 bulbs. Sandy loam, peat, and leaf-mould. Offsets. They 

 require the treatment of Cyrtanthus and Amaryllis. The 

 one cultivated is V. pyrpiirea. 



VENUS'S FLY-TRAP. See Dionvea. 



VENUS'S LOOKING GLASS. See Specularia. 



A^ERBASCUM. Mulletn. [Scrophulariacete.] Large 

 spiry-growing hardy perennials, strikingly effective in large 

 borders or towards the margins of shrubberies. They are 

 easily-grown plants, thriving in any garden soil, and merely 

 requiring to be sown where they are to bloom, the duplicate 

 plants in each patch being thinned away, leaving only the 

 strongest. The seeds should be sown about June in one year 

 to produce flowering plants for the next season. They are 

 mostly biennials, and young plants should therefore be raised 

 from seeds annually. The pei-ennials are increased both by 

 seeds and division. They are mostly yellow. V. aJopecurus, 

 V. hJattaria, V. formosum. V. (jrandijiorum, V. pliceniceiun, 

 flowers purple, and V. spectahile, flowers yellow and puryile. 



VERBENA. Vervain. [Verbenaceas.] Beautiful flower- 

 garden plants. The genus consists for the most part of 

 perennial species, requiring protection during winter : an in- 

 digenous species is a mere weed. V. venosa is nearly hardy, 

 an upright-growing plant, bearing purplish rose-coloured 

 flowers : this propagates readily by parting its creeping 

 underground stems. The race of half-hardy Verbenas has 

 given rise to those fine seminal varieties which are now 

 during summer to be seen decorating eveiy garden. V. 

 Melindres or cliamadnfolia was one of the first favourites, but, 

 like most of the other species, it has been lost amid the more 



