254 On the Culture of the Clerodendroti. 



Art. IV. Oil the Culture of Clerodendrons. By R. B. 

 Leuchars. New Haven, Conn. 



The Clerodendrons are a most noble family of half-shrubby, 

 half-herbaceous plants, with very large oblong-ovate, or 

 acute lobate leaves, sinuated, or angled at the margins, and 

 bearing, generally at the end of each shoot or stem, large 

 capitate heads of flowers of various colors, and some of them 

 are delightfully fragrant. 



I believe there are few amateurs who cultivate this splen- 

 did tribe of plants in this country. And I think I may 

 assert, without fear of contradiction, that there are few, who 

 have seen them in all their splendor, who would not wish to 

 have them in their collection, however small the collection 

 might be. They are of easy cultivation, and exceedingly 

 well adapted for the adornment of greenhouses during the 

 hot months of summer, a period when these structures, in- 

 stead of being, as they certainly ought, the centre of floral 

 attraction, are frequently converted into receptacles of lum- 

 ber and rubbish, thereby becoming a kind of floricultural in- 

 congruity in the midst of the floral harmony that reigns 

 around them, and lying like a dead weight upon our sensi- 

 bilities every time we cast our eyes upon them ; and, as they 

 are generally erected in the most conspicuous places, they 

 can hardly be avoided. Such plants as the Clerodendrons, 

 together with gesneras, gloxinias, torenias, achimenes, &c. 

 would keep the house in a blaze of bloom during the hottest 

 of seasons, i. e., providing it be kept shaded, and a moderate 

 degree of humidity artificially maintained.* 



In the artificial culture of any kind of plants brought from 

 the tropical latitudes, I consider it essentially requisite to 

 inquire into its habit, and the treatment it receives in its nat- 

 ural habitat. It will generally be found that the closer we 

 approach to the culture it gets from nature, the more likely 

 will it be to develope its natural beauty. If the plant be 

 sensibly improved by certain modes of management, then we 

 conclude that it has found the conditions in which it has 



* We are glad to see that some gardeners are aware of the importance of what we 

 have so strongly urged in an article in our volume for 1847, (XIII. p. 258.) — Ed. 



