2GG THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



THE CULTURE OP STEPHANOTIS FLORIBUNDA. 



[HIS is a lady's flower, par excellence, for nothing can 

 equal it for bouquets and dressing-up epergnes, and for 

 all other uses to which cut flowers can be applied. It, 

 however, is not grown so extensively as it should be, 

 simply because the great body of amateurs imagine 

 that to grow and flower it well a very strong heat is required. It 

 will not do any good in an ordinary greenhouse temperature, 

 because there would not be sufficient heat to enable the growth to 

 be made early enough in the season to get well ripened before the 

 autumn ; but it can be grown in a much lower temperature than is 

 usually employed. 



In the first place, secure a healthy plant in a 48-size pot early 

 in March, and shift at once, if the pot is full of roots, into two sizes 

 larger, and place in a temperature of G0° or 65°. Train the young 

 growth over the roof of the bouse. To get an abundance of flowers, 

 the wood must be exposed to the light, and training the growth to 

 the roof affords the readiest means of attaining the aesired object. 

 If specimens are not required for exhibition, train the growth to 

 the roof permanently ; otherwise, regulate the growth carefully to 

 allow of its being taken down, and placed upon a trellis fixed in the 

 pot, just before coming into flower. Many Stephanotis growers 

 are afraid of the little trouble incurred in transferring the growth 

 from one trellis to the other, and grow them upon the pot trellis 

 entirely. A very little thought will show that, when the growth is 

 huddled together upon so contracted a space, it is impossible to 

 receive sufficient light and air to thoroughly mature the young wood. 

 "When the specimens are not required to be moved about, it is best 

 to train them on the roof altogether, as better growth is made, and 

 the flowers show to greater advantage. When portable specimens 

 are grown, put them on the trellis some time in March, and leave 

 them there until the flowers are past, and then return them to the 

 roof. 



It is difficult, if not impossible, to say when the next shift will 

 be required, in a case like this, where everything depends upon the 

 progress each individual specimen makes, for it is no use to repot 

 them before they are well rooted. With ordinary treatment they, 

 however, will be in proper condition for repottiug early in June. Use 

 pots two sizes larger, and be very particular in having them properly 

 drained, as this shift will have to carry them through the whole of 

 the next year; and no stove plant is more impatient of having 

 stagnant moisture or sour soil about the roots than the one we are 

 now dealing with. A compost, consisting of equal parts fibrous 

 peat, turfy loam, aud rotten cow-dung, is the best that can possibly 

 be had, when mixed with a sixth part of sharp silver-sand, or good 

 drift-sand, washed clean. The peat and loam must be broken up 

 roughly, and if it has been laid in a heap a few months previously to 

 UBing, its value will be enhanced. 



A temperature of about GO is advised as desirable to begin with ; 



