214 THE FLORA li WOULD AND GARDEN GUFDK. 



may be expected the following season. About tbe begiuning or 

 middle of June, if all has gone on well, it will be found to have 

 filled its pots with fine healthy roots, and should be shifted into an 

 eleven-inch pot, using the same compost as before. After shifting, 

 continue the generous growing treatment already recommended, 

 until the end of autumn is approached, when water should be 

 gradually withheld, and all the light and air that is possible given 

 it, to ripen the wood well — an important point in the culture of all 

 plants, but more especially so in that of the Allamanda. 



Keep it all but dry during the gloomy months of early winter, 

 and about the middle of February start it into growth. Prime the 

 unripe top3 off the old wood, and if a large and fine specimen is 

 desired, shift it when it begins to break, and plunge it again in 

 bottom-heat. Train the branches well out on a barrel-shaped 

 trellis, which may consist of seven or eight nice hazel rods, of suffi- 

 cient length, placed in the soil immediately inside the pot, fastened 

 to a hoop about their middle, and then to a smaller hoop at their 

 top. Beud the shoots of the plant round this, so as to cover it 

 regularly, and when the young branches have begun to grow freely, 

 train the strongest of them near the bottom of the trellis, so as to 

 have your plant regularly covered with flowers, which it will be 

 by the middle of July if the foregoing directions have been carefully 

 carried out. In the third and fourth years it will flower earlier and 

 better than in the second, and it will not require to be shifted ; but 

 it should be fed occasionally with clear liquid manure-water, to keep 

 it healthy and vigorous, without being over-luxuriant. By liquid 

 manure, I mean clear weak dung-water from the stable-yard. 



LTSIANTHUS RUSSELLIANUS. 



OR the decoration of the conservatory from the beginning 

 of July to the end of September, few plants can com- 

 pare with the Lisianthus. Iudeed, the only fault this 

 plant has, is that it requires a very strong moist heat to 

 grow it in perfection, and it is also somewhat liable to 

 damp off during winter ; care, however, will prevent this, but unless 

 a moist, high temperature can be afforded, while it is growing, it is 

 useless to attempt its culture. The plant may be increased either 

 by means of seeds or cuttings ; the latter root freely, and if firm bits 

 of young wood are selected about April, planted in sandy peat, 

 covered with a bell-glass, and placed in a bottom-heat of about 80° 

 or 85°, and guarded from damp, they will be ready to pot singly in 

 about six weeks, and will form nice little plants previous to winter. 

 The usual method, however, of obtaining a stock of young plants 

 is from seed, and probably seedlings are more vigorous than plants 

 obtained from cuttings. The seeds should be sown as early in 

 February as a temperature of 70° is at command. But unless some 

 care is exercised as to the method of sowing the seeds, plants need 

 hardly be looked for. Fit a pot nicely to a bell-glass, then half fill 



