PENSTEMON SrECIOSUlT. 



23 



flowers during two or three months of the summer ; being generally in blossom by 

 mid-summer or soon after, and remaining in flower until the end of August, or the 

 beginning of September. It is far less common than it deserves to be, and this is 

 perhaps owing to the fact that is is not strictly speaking a perennial, as is usually 

 supposed, for it generally dies at the end of the second flowering season, and 

 consequently requires to be kept up by seeds or cuttings. The seed should be 

 sown as soon as ripe, in pots or pans of sandy loam, and the young plants, which 

 will soon make their appearance, must be preserved from frost during the 

 succeeding winter, in a cold frame. Where this convenience is not at hand, the 

 seedlings must be kept on a window; when this is impracticable, it will be better to 

 defer sowing the seeds until the following March, although, in all probability, but a 

 moiety of them will then vegetate. When potted off in the spring, the seedlings 

 will require a rich soil, kept porous by sand, or very sandy loam, and it will be 

 advisable to protect them, after potting, by any available means from the chilling 

 spring frosts. 



At the season when bedding plants are turned out of their winter quarters, the 

 Penstemon speciosum may also be planted in the situation where it is designed to 

 bloom the following year, though the plants will take no harm, but rather benefit 

 from being kept in a cold frame until autumn, provided they are, as occasion 

 requires, shifted into larger pots, and daily supplied with air and water. 



Where sufficient space can be spared, they will be found very suitable plants 

 for a bed, or a clump of them may be planted together in the mixt flower border ; 

 and in either situation they will, when in bloom, form a highly pleasing contrast 

 to the numerous flowers of scarlet hue with which the flower garden abounds in 

 the summer season. Plants with blossoms of clear, unambiguous blue, are not so 

 numerous as could be wished, for there is no colour, we think, on which the eye 

 rests with greater satisfaction than on ' Heaven's own tint.' 



We must not neglect to observe, that although the P. speciosum is a native of the 

 bleak Oregon territory, it requires, notwithstanding, to be guarded from excessive 

 moisture during the winter season. This may be partially accomplished by 

 covering the earth, in the immediate neighbourhood of the roots, with dry fern, and 

 also by planting the specimens in soil well drained, and of an open sandy texture, 

 supplying any deficiency of vegetable matter by a top-dressing of thoroughly rotten 

 manure in the spring, to be afterwards dug in. 



If the plant, after flowering the first season, be allowed to ripen its seed, it is 

 generally so much exhausted by the operation, that it seldom blooms well the 

 second year ; but if cut down immediately after the first production of flowers is 

 over, it 'breaks' for the next season. It may be increased by cuttings or slips, 

 taken off in summer and planted in the shade, as well as by seeds, which it ripens 

 freely. 



