ON THE CULTURE OF ACHIMENES. 177 



surrounded with crimson, white centre, with bright rosy pink under 

 petals ; and 4th. Patrician, a remarkably smooth and even textured 

 flower, having rosy pink lower petals, with dark top petals, changing 

 to rosy crimson on the edge. 



Calceolarias. 



Three prizes were awarded by the judges for these, namely, to 

 Kinghorn's Masterpiece, Gaines's Lord Hardinge, and Green's La 

 Polka, each of them being distinct and desirable varieties. 



Some Fuchsias and Cinerarias were shown, but none possessing 

 novelty or striking peculiarities appeared amongst them. 



ARTICLE XIII. 



ON THE CULTURE OF ACHIMENES. 



If our North Country Correspondent who requests information on 

 the cultivation of the Achimenes, will pursue the following directions, 

 he will be amply compensated with Jitie specimens. 



Achimenes coccinea. — In the beginning of February take the 

 pots that contain the roots of the plants that have flowered the season 

 previous, and carefully take away the suiface soil till the small tubers 

 appear. Then fill the pots up with a compost of peat soil, light 

 loam, and leaf soil, and give the whole a gentle watering. Then 

 place the pots in a fruiting pine-stove or hot-bed frame, the tem- 

 perature of which is kept from 70° to 85 D of heat. Give water 

 sparingly for about ten days, but afterwards more freely, so as to 

 effectually moisten the whole of the soil to the bottom of the pots, 

 which will have become very dry from having been kept during the 

 winter without water. 



When the shoots have attained the height of about three inches, 

 turn the bulbs out of their pots, and carefully break them till you 

 can divide the young shoots. Then select the strongest, and 'retain 

 all the roots attached to them, and plant singly into sixty-sized pots, 

 in the same compost as recommended for earthing up the pots, with 

 the addition of one-fifth fine clean sand. Grow the plants in a moist 

 heat and in a tlight shade, occasionally sprinkling them with a sy- 



Vol. XIV. No. 161. i« 



