THE GUERNSEY LILY. 51 



IXIA, (Ixia.) 



A GENUS of beautiful Cape bulbs, with narrow leaves, 

 and slender, simple, or slightly branched stems, bearing 

 spikes of large showy flowers, various in color, and ex- 

 ceedingly attractive when fully expanded by sunshine. 

 /. viridiflora, which has large sea-green flowers with 

 black markings at the base of the segments, is a very 

 singular-looking, as well as very beautiful plant. There 

 are many species and some varieties, and the greater 

 part of them are worthy of cultivation. They are half 

 hardy, but with us should be grown in pots in the green- 

 house. About midwinter they will begin to show their 

 handsome flowers freely. When done flowering they 

 should be dried off till September or October, which is 

 the proper time to start them again. They grow well in 

 a light loam with the addition of leaf mould and sand. 

 They are propagated by offsets. 



GUERNSEY LILY, (Nerine.) 



SHOWY bulbous plants, the type of which is the Guern- 

 sey Lily, and which are natives of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, China, and Japan. The Guernsey Lily is a native 

 of Japan, and the reason why it has obtained its English 

 name is said to be, that a ship laden with these bulbs 

 and other plants from China was wrecked on the coast 

 of Guernsey; and the bulbs being washed on shore, took 

 root in the sandy soil of the beach, and flourished there 

 so remarkably as to be supposed to be natives of the 

 island. Whether this story be true or not, it is quite 

 certain that for nearly two hundred years these bulbs 

 have been cultivated in Guernsey with the greatest 

 success, growing freely in the open air, and producing 



