BETJTZIA GRACILIS. 



71 



peculiar to that species and crenata. The utmost height it will attain we are 

 ignorant of, as most of the specimens are yet small ; but it will, probably, not 

 exceed three or four feet. Its cultivation, whether in pots or the open ground, is 

 of the simplest character, the chief point requiring notice being the mode in which 

 the shrub is pruned. All the Deutzias produce their flowers on the wood of the 

 previous year; if, therefore, the ordinary mode of shortening the shoots were 

 adopted, most of the flower buds would be pruned off ; the young shoots should 

 therefore be left untouched, but the old wood must be thinned out in autumn, as 

 well as all cross shoots which interfere with the regularity of its growth. The 

 taller growing species, such as scdbra and crenata, may be trained to a single stem, 

 all suckers and the lower shoots being cut away. 



Where there is a choice of soils, a mixture of peat and loam will be found to suit 

 not only gracilis, but all the species ; in the absence of these, any good friable soil, 

 in a well drained site, may be used. Increase may be effected, either by layers, or 

 cuttings of the half-ripened wood under a hand glass, in the open border ; a slight 

 bottom heat will be advisable when the cutting is not taken until late in the 

 season. Most of the species throw up suckers, which offer a ready mode of 

 increase, and it is probable that gracilis may be multiplied in the same way. In 

 the open ground this species flowers about the beginning of June ; but when grown 

 as a pot plant, it may be had in bloom at almost any period of the winter and 

 spring, where there are facilities for forcing. "With no better accommodation than 

 that afforded by a good window, it might easily be made to yield its flowers, six 

 weeks earlier than in the open borders. The temperature of an ordinary apart- 

 ment will be sufficient to excite it into growth ; but it must be confessed that the 

 dry atmosphere of a room is somewhat injurious, both to the foliage and flowers ; it 

 should, therefore, when in bloom, be kept cool and moist. Specimens cultivated in pots 

 should be re-potted after flowering, and exposed during summer and autumn in the 

 open air ; they will require to be pruned in the manner explained for the larger plants. 



The Deutzias are very closely allied to the genus Philadelphus, of which one 

 species, the common Syringa, or Mock Orange (P. coronariut), is generally found in 

 the shrubbery. In the Syringas, the sepals and petals are each four ; the stamens 

 numerous (more than twenty), and the style one ; in Deutzia, both sepals and petals 

 are five in number, the stamens ten, and the styles three; there are, therefore, 

 abundant marks of distinction. The stamens are alternately longer, the shortest 

 being opposite the petals, and all of them are curiously winged, and somewhat 

 forked at the summit, or rather three-toothed ; the anther being seated on the 

 central tooth ; in D. staminea, this peculiarity is so marked, as to have suggested 

 the specific name, 8ro«rf-stamened. Nor is this the only noticeable feature, for a 

 close examination will reveal the presence of a yellowish ring within the circle 

 formed by the stamens, termed by liotaniste the disk. 



