Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 



315 



their bright red tint, and after this time no 

 more syringing will be required. Through 

 the autumn and winter give ordinary gi-een- 

 house treatment in the matter of warmth, 

 air, and water. Plants that had their 

 Ijerries ripe early, and have got shabby, 

 may be cut well back early in the year, 

 and when they have broken shaken par- 

 tially out, put in pots a size larger and 

 grown on as in the previous summer. So 

 managed they can be used a second season, 

 or they may be planted out half a yard 

 apart in the open ground, where, if well 

 attended to with water to the soil and 

 syringing overhead, they will make hand- 

 some little specimens by the beginning of 

 September, when they should be taken up 

 and potted as already indicated. 



Insects. — Red spider, to which these 

 Solanums are subject, will be kept down 

 if attention as advised in the matter of 

 syringing is given. Aphides, which are 

 also partial to them, must be destroyed by 

 fumigation. 



SOLANUM JASMINOIDES. 



A deciduous climber w-ith pretty flowers, 

 suitable for giowing on a rafter in a green- 

 house. 



It can be struck from cuttings in the 

 spring, and grown on similarly to Sollyas, 

 which see. It flowers over a considerable 

 portion of the sunmier, and comes from 

 South America. 



SOLANUM OVIGERUM. 



Among the annual species of Solanum is 

 the singular egg plant ; there are several 

 forms, (littering little in general character 

 except in the colour of their fruit, of which 

 there are white, red, violet, and yellow 

 varieties. 



The cultivation of aU is the same ; the 

 seeds should be sown in spring, in pots 

 or pans filled with fine loamy soil, to which 

 some sand has been added ; cover them 

 lightly, and stand on a moderate hot-bed 

 covered with an ordinary frame. Here 

 they will do better than in a house. WHien 

 the plants are up put them singly in small 

 pots filled with soil well enriched with 

 rotten dung, gi^'ing larger pots as required 

 further on. During the early stages of 

 their growth, and iintil the fiuit has at- 

 tained its full size, they should be kept in 

 genial heat and be well supplied with 

 water ; give air daily, with a little shade 

 when the sun is powerful, and syringe 

 freely overhead to keep dowai red spider, 

 to which they are subject. When the 

 fruit has reached its full size and colour 



they may be stood anywhere in a cool 

 house. From Africa. 



Insects. — Aphides are partial to these 

 plants, and must be destroyed by fumiga- 

 tion or they soon spoil the leaves. 



SOLLYA. 



These are very distinct evergreen green- 

 house twining plants of slender habit ; 

 their pretty Howers bright blue — a colour so 

 scarce among hardwooded plants — are pro- 

 duced in great profusion during the sum- 

 mer and autumn months ; the flowers are 

 small individually, but as they are borne 

 in (quantities the deficiency in size is fully 

 compensated for. Plants in a healthy con- 

 dition give a succession for a considerable 

 time. They are more at home when used 

 for training round a pillar in a conservatory, 

 or for growing as single pot specimens on 

 a trellis or other support, than when em- 

 ployed for draping the roof, a purpose that 

 can be better effected by plants of larger 

 growth. In fact, when grown with a view to 

 training the branches to cover any portion 

 of the woodwork in the conservatory it will 

 generally be found better to confine their 

 roots to a pot, unless the size of the border 

 into which they are to be turned out is 

 very limited, as, though anything but 

 delicate rooters, like many of the plants 

 that hail from the same region, their roots, 

 in keeping with their heads, are of such 

 moderate extent that their requirements 

 can be better met by pot culture. Sollyas 

 strike from cuttings, which should be 

 obtained in spring from shoots that have 

 some time before been cut back ; take 

 them off with a heel when about 3 inches 

 long, keep close and moderately warm and 

 they will strike in a few weeks, when 

 move them singly into little pots, stopping 

 the points as soon as they begin to grow. 

 By the end of June give 4-inch pots, using 

 a mixture of peat and sand ; from the time 

 they are established give them warm green- 

 house treatment. A temperature such as 

 required by ordinary greenhouse stock vnM 

 answer through the winter. About the 

 end of March or beginning of April give 

 them a shift into pots 3 inches larger, 

 make the soil quite firm, and insert 

 half a dozen tolerably tall sticks just 

 inside the rims of the pots, as whatever 

 may be the ultimate intention as to the 

 position the plants are to occupy it is 

 better to support them in this way at first. 

 After potting keep, as usual with plants of 

 similar desci-iption, the atmosphere a little 

 closer for two or thi^ee weeks, until growth 

 has fairly commenced, and as soon as the 

 weather gets sufficiently warm syringe 



