130 B1UEF REMARKS. 



inch pots are in most cases sufficiently large. After the pots are 

 drained, and filled with the soil, make a hole in the centre, in which 

 place the plant, and carefully press the soil close round about it ; 

 then on the top, and all round the plant, should be placed a little 

 green moss, cut fine ; the surface should be clipped level and neat with 

 a pair of scissors, and care must be taken not to bury the heart of the 

 plant. Give them a good watering with a fine-rose watering-pot, to 

 settle the soil. The best time for potting is about the month of 

 March. I would recommend to shake them out of the old soil every 

 season, and pot them in fresh soil. 



" The plants thus potted should be placed in shallow pans of water, 

 at the end of a stove or an orchid-house, on a shelf, about eighteen 

 inches from the glass. At the end where they are placed, shading will 

 not be required, but the glass may be painted with a little thin paint 

 just over them, or, which is still better, with some paste in which a 

 little whiting, dissolved in hot water, has been mixed ; this must be 

 used with a brush, on some dry day, to allow it to get thoroughly dry, 

 or the rain would wash it off. In winter, a little hot water with a 

 brush will soon wash it off again, and at that season the light will 

 prove beneficial to the plants. 



" Watering must be carefully attended to. After the plants are 

 potted, and placed on the shelf, in March, syringe or water them with 

 a fine-rose water-pot once a-day. As the plants increase in growth, 

 and the summer advances, water must be applied oftener. By the 

 latter part of May, and in June and July, when the sun is very 

 powerful and hot, they should be watered ten or twelve times a-day ; 

 but when the weather is cloudy, three or four times a-day will be suf- 

 ficient. The stronger the sun the oftener they will require watering. 

 As autumn advances, decrease the water by degrees, and when the 

 plants are at rest in the winter, water applied once or twice a-week 

 will be quite sufficient. 



" The plants must be kept clean, and the moss clipped often, so as 

 not to allow it to cover the heart of the plants, as that would choke 

 them, and soon produce death. This treatment will secure short and 

 strong leaves, with the lobes large, lying close on the moss, and of a 

 beautiful healthy colour, instead of being drawn long and slender, and 

 havino- a sickly colour, as is too often the case. The flower-stalks 

 should be pinched off whenever they appear, to encourage the growth 

 of the plant, the flowers being very insignificant, the beauty and singu- 

 larity consisting in the trap form of the sensitive lobes of the leaves." 



The Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya. — The second des- 

 criptive series of these highly interesting plants, recently published by 

 Reeve and Co., introduces to us several remarkable and mostly very 

 beautiful forms of this genus, of which Dr. Hooker, during his just 

 terminated journeyings, has found no less than forty-three species inha- 

 biting this elevated tract of Northern India. This second series con- 

 tains figures of ten species, and is to be shortly followed by another. 

 The plates are beautiful, and no doubt faithful representations:- — 

 R. Aucklandii, a bush with large leaves and very large white veiny 

 flowers, remarkable for the comparative shortness of their tube ; R. 



