DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF PICOTEES. 41 
partaking of that the more readily strike root than when the juices are 
comparatively motionless. Peat and sand in equal portions is the best 
soil to strike the cuttings in. 
PENTSTEMON SPECIOSUM. 
No flower-garden ornament can exceed in beauty a bed of these plants 
when in full bloom; their fine sky and dark blue flowers, so profusely 
produced, and so neat in form, &c., render it as a whole one of the 
loveliest, and meriting a place in every flower garden. It is generally 
supposed to be a perennial plant, but the fact is, it is a biennial, and 
dying at the end of the second year has led to the conclusion of its 
being exceedingly difficult to cutivate. The contrary, however, is the 
case, as is stated by Mr. Gordon, of the Horticultural Society’s Garden, 
in a communication inserted in the ‘“‘ Gardener’s Chronicle,” who says, 
‘no plant is more easy when properly cultivated,” &c. The principles 
of his method of culture are embodied herein :— 
The plant seeds freely, which ripens towards the close of summer. 
If the seeds are sown the spring following the plants rarely come up 
till the following year, but if sown as soon as gathered, in pots or pans, 
in a compost of loam and sand, and be placed in a cool frame free from 
frost through winter, then in March be removed to a warmer situation, 
as the greenhouse, the plants will be fit to repot in May, into sixty- 
sized (three-inch) pots, in a compost of sandy loam and well rotted 
cow-dung. They should be placed in a close pit or frame for a few 
days till recovered from shifting, then give a free admission of air, and 
early in July remove them into a frame which slopes to the north. 
At the end of August shift them into larger pots, giving plenty of air 
and water, and towards the end of October turn them out, with entire 
balls, into the bed where they are intended to bloom. ‘The compost 
should be rich, and consist of sandy loam and well rotted dung. Any 
small plants may be kept in pots till March, then be planted out, and 
they will bloom later in the season than the autumn planted ones. 
Never water the plants overhead, but the soil liberally. If the plants 
put out in October be covered with a frame sash or hand glasses, in 
wet weather, during winter, it will tend to preserve them, as they are 
soon injured by damp and frost together, although they will bear a 
severe dry frost uninjured. A supply of plants being thus provided 
each season this valuable ornament may every year enrich the beauties 
of the flower garden. Seeds may be procured of the regular seedsmen, 
at a reasonable price, and if obtained immediately and sown, the plants 
would very probably come up the ensuing spring. 
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF PICOTEES. 
BY J. M., JUN. 
Tue following descriptive list of Picotees is from the note book of an 
amateur grower, and the particulars have been taken with much care. 
‘Their accuracy may be fully relied on. Some of the sorts are not new, 
Vou. xvir. No. 26.—N.S. E 
