J56 



THE FLORISTS MANUAI/. 



borders, but are more valuable as 

 vase plants, for Avhich their graceful but 

 free growth and free flowering qualities 

 are well adapted. They cannot be called 

 drooping plants, yet their slender but 

 wiry growths have a fine effect in the 

 edge of a vase or veranda-box. 



Any good loam will grow them. Lift 

 a few plants in fall and cut back hard, 

 and keep in a cool, light house. In 

 January start with a little heat and you 

 will get plenty of cuttings. Or if 

 you prefer, take off some cuttings in 

 the fall, but they don t root freely un 

 less the cuttings are of recent growth. 



NEPENTHES. 



These remarkable plants are little 

 handled by the commercial florist, but 

 are so striking and curious that all are 

 interested in a knowledge of them. 

 They are an important genus in that 



bacteria which are capable of digesting 

 nitrogenous matter, if an insect, a fly 

 or bee once explores the depths of the 

 pitcher he is gone. They are incapable 

 of climbing up by the interior walls of 

 the pitchers and are finally drowned, to 

 their discomfiture, but probably to the 

 benefit of the plant, hence they are 

 called insectivorous, or insect-eating 

 plants. 



They are nearly all the most trop 

 ical of tropical plants, found in Bor 

 neo, Madagascar, Ceylon and pretty 

 close to the equator. The pitchers hang 

 on for months in perfect condition if 

 not accidentally or purposely emptied 

 of their fluid, which they never should 

 &quot;be, or they will shrivel up. 



Although plants requiring a very high 

 temperature, they are not at all diffi 

 cult to grow providing you have heat 

 and moisture. I have enumerated sev 

 eral of the finest and best known, but 



Nepenthes. 



family of plants which are now known 

 as insectivorous and -to which the great 

 Darwin devoted a volume as the result 

 of his marvelous research. The Dionsea 

 muscipula (Venus fly trap), from Caro 

 lina, is the most familiar of the insec 

 tivorous plants. Others are its close re 

 lative, the drosera, of our northern 

 swamps, and again the familiar sar- 

 racenia. 



The nepenthes are called pitcher 

 plants, because the extension of the leaf 

 terminates in the perfect form of a 

 pitcher, lid and all. If they were not 

 called pitcher plants they would remind 

 you much of the large German pipes, 

 five or six inches in the bowl, which 

 usually have a cover. What part the 

 pitcher bears to the economy of the 

 plant is not fully determined, but the 

 fluid held in the pitcher contains 



there are many hybrids of great beauty. 



Propagation : They are not difficult 

 to propagate by cuttings, which should 

 be three or four eyes of the tip of a 

 shoot, placed in sand and kept moist. 

 The cuttings should be in a propagat 

 ing case in a warm house, and the sand 

 should be 10 to 15 degrees warmer 

 than the house, or about 80 to 85 de 

 grees. May and June are good months 

 to propagate and the cuttings will root 

 in three or four weeks. 



Eooted plants should be grown in 

 hanging wooden baskets. Shade in the 

 summer is necessary. Our summer 

 nights are often too cool to grow the 

 nepenthes well and a gentle fire heat 

 is essential the year around. The lowest 

 night temperature in winter should not 

 be less than 70 degrees. The baskets 

 should be filled one-third their depth 



with clean crocks and then the roots 

 of the nepenthes should be filled in 

 with equal parts of fern roots and 

 good sphagnum moss, rounding up the 

 surface of the basket with good live 

 sphagnum. 



The daily spraying will be sufficient 

 without water, and in summer spray 

 them twice a day. What they want is 

 an atmosphere fairly reeking with 

 moisture. The more moist your atmos 

 phere the more your pitcher plants will 

 thrive. 



The following all have grand pitch 

 ers: N. Dominii, Mastersiana, Mor- 

 ganiaua, Kafflesiana, Veitchii, Williamsii, 

 Madagascariensis. As the names of the 

 above will denote, some of them are 

 garden hybrids. 



The lamented Mr. Court, who repre 

 sented Messrs. Veitch, of London, and 

 who made many trips to this country, 

 was an enthusiast on these curious 

 plants, and whoever saw the collection 

 of nepenthes at Chelsea, as the writer 

 did in 1885, could not fail to see that 

 this wonderful collection of grotesque 

 exotics were perfectly at home. One 

 of the handsomest hybrids raised by 

 Mr. Court bears his name. The pitch 

 ers on some of the largest are eight 

 inches long by three inches in width. 



OLEANDER-Neriom. 



There is a marked inclination among 

 our patrons the past year or two to 

 decorate their grounds, particularly 

 where the grounds are confined to a 

 city lot, with palms, sweet bays, tubs 

 of hydrangeas and other plants, and the 

 well known oleander may yet come into 

 favor; in fact, we have of late had 

 calls for large plants of it. 



Our acquaintance with this fine shrub 

 is too often an unpleasant one. Some 

 worthy matron may possess an oleander 

 too large for her window, and she en 

 quires how much you will charge to store 

 it for the winftr. You are bound to 

 charge about as much as the plant is 

 worth, so the deal is off. Still, where 

 you have a house entirely devoted to the 

 care of such winter boarders, you must 

 take the oleander as well as other plants, 

 only be sure you get enough for your 

 space and labor. It is no more reason 

 able that we should take in a palm or 

 sweet bay or an oleander for little 

 recompense than that a livery stable 

 should board a horse all winter for little 

 or nothing. 



With all their familiarity, oleanders 

 are beautiful shrubs. We all hear so 

 often about the hedges Qf them in 

 Bermuda. In the cooler parts of Eu 

 rope they are almost entirely green 

 house plants. With us they are chiefly 

 used for summer decoration outside, and 

 our warm, bright summer suits them 

 finely if well supplied with water. 



They root easily from young growths 

 in spring, and with occasional pinch 

 ing ana shifting on as required soon 

 make large plants. It is with the care 

 of large plants that we are most con 

 cerned, and to obtain a fine lot of flow 

 ers in the summer. 



The flower comes on the matured 

 wood of the spring growth or previous 



