206 ON PLANTS ADAPTED FOR PLANTING IN MASSES. 



taken off, and struck in heat, which they do very freely ; ten or 

 twenty may be inserted in a pot, and after having taken root, they 

 may be kept in a cool greenhouse, frame, or any similar situation, 

 during winter. If large plants are desired, some of the cuttings 

 should be potted off at the end of February, using a rich loamy 

 soil, and well draining the pots. Each plant should have a stick, 

 to which it should be neatly tied, keeping a principal leading shoot. 

 These plants, when properly attended to, in repotting as soon as 

 required', and in training erect, will, if kept in a greenhouse, reach 

 three or four feet high by the end of May ; and if then planted 

 out, will reach six feet, or more, by the end of summer. Old 

 plants, that have survived the winter as above directed, if turned 

 out, will be proportionably fine. A bed of this plant looks well, 

 when the plants are so ranged as to form a cone ; or, indeed, in 

 any shape in which the middle of the bed is the highest, gradually 

 lowering to the edges. The plant is admirably well adapted for 

 pegging down to the ground, the lateral shoots rising from six 

 inches to a foot high. The leading shoots being prostrate, checks 

 luxuriance, and causes abundance of bloom. Cuttings taken off 

 in autumn are very suitable for this purpose : they readily bend 

 to the direction desired. Care is required to have a number of 

 short sticks pricked in the bed, to which the shoots, in the early 

 part of the season, must be tied, being very brittle ; subsequently, 

 however, when there is an abundance of shoots, no tying will be 

 required, but the sticks are necessary, in order to prevent strong 

 winds from blowing the plants out of proper form. This plant is 

 also admirably well adapted for training against a wall, or for 

 covering a fence during summer : of course proportionably sized 

 plants must be used to suit the purposes. The flowers of the 

 original species has a dark-coloured tube, but a variety has been 

 raised with a lilac tube : the former is now commonly called N. 

 phanicea, and the latter N. phanicea var. pallida. 



(to be continued.) 



