THIRD WEEK IN FEBRUARY 



produce a fresh set of buds, which will afford plenty of 

 bright flowers at this time of year. Seeds sown in heat in 

 January should be potted on throughout the summer and 

 kept growing, when they will bloom also toward the end 

 of the year, making charming little plants for table deco- 

 ration. 



A very interesting hybrid between a gloxinia and a 

 gesnera is the gloxinera introduced by Messrs. J. Veitch, 

 of Chelsea, with rich carmine-crimson blossoms ; this will 

 probably prove the forerunner of a new race, for one of the 

 peculiarities of the gesneraceous plants is that they are easily 

 induced to hybridise with other members of the order of a 

 different genus, and in this way various new races of plants 

 have already originated. 



Messrs. Ant. Roozen, who make a speciality of these 

 singular and interesting flowers, catalogue a large number 

 of hybrids amongst them, as well as rare and but little- 

 known plants, well worthy of much more attention than 

 they obtain. Isoloma hirsuta (itself a remarkably handsome 

 plant, with flowers in most brilliant scarlet, and velvet-like 

 leaves edged and veined with the same tint) has been hybri- 

 dised with the tydaeas, the result being a race of isolomas in 

 many various tints, of robust and floriferous habit, growing 

 to the height of 3 feet, and producing many sprays of richly 

 tinted flowers during the autumn and winter. 



These hybrids having again been crossed with Sciadocalyx 

 digitaliflorum, another distinct genus the sciado-tydasas 

 has been the result, plants which have kept the robust habit 

 of the sciadocalyx with the rich colouring of the tydasas. 



The achimenes, too (which are better known in our green- 

 houses than many other gesneraceous plants), have been 

 hybridised with the gesneras, producing the splendid ncegelo- 

 achimenes Rubicond and others, which have a much longer 

 period of blossom than the achimenes, and these may be 

 induced, under good cultivation, to flower for six months. 



Achimenes of good varieties, in clear violet-blue, scarlet, 

 white, and purple, may be induced to bloom in succession 

 by means of starting their singular little stolons at intervals 



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