i 7 4 MORE POT-POURRI 



splendidly. I wish I had room for eight pots of them 

 instead of only two. There are several pots with Epi- 

 phyllum truncatum in full flower. The flowers are very 

 pretty when seen close, and look well gathered and put 

 into small glasses ; but the colour is a little metallic 

 and magentary. Most greenhouses have them, but few 

 people manage to flower them well. 



Ficus repens is a little, graceful, easily cultivated 

 greenhouse climber, which hangs prettily in baskets or 

 creeps along stones in a greenhouse border. 



Every year we grow various Eucalyptuses from seed 

 some for putting out, and some for retaining in pots 

 especially the very sweet Eucalyptus citriodora, which is 

 in the greenhouse now and is a great help, as it looks 

 flourishing ; while the sweet Verbenas will have their 

 winter rest, as they are deciduous, whatever one does 

 at least, so far as I have been able to manage up to now. 

 But I am not sure that autumn cuttings, grown on in 

 heat, might not remain growing at any rate for part of 

 the winter. Life is always rather unbearable to my lux- 

 ury-loving nature without Lemon -scented Verbena, and 

 I miss it so in the finger-bowls at dinner, partly because 

 those few leaves supply what one wants without much 

 trouble. But a little bunch of Violets carefully arranged, 

 and one Sweet Geranium leaf, especially the Prince of 

 Orange, make a combination that pleases everyone, and 

 they are always at hand at this time of year. 



January 14th. In the January number of a charm- 

 ing little periodical called 'The Sun -children's Budget,' 

 intended to teach young children botany easily and 

 amusingly, there was an account and an illustration of a 

 rare English wild flower, Pceonia corallina. The coloured 

 print of it gives the idea that the red may not be of a 

 very pretty hue ; but this would not matter, as the chief 

 charm of the plant is the seed -pod. This slightly re- 



