May.~\ HOT-HOUSE OF REPOTTING, ^TC. 171 



roccinea, and 31. chinensis, are more esteemed in artificial cul- 

 tivation for their flowers, and for being smaller in growth 

 M. Cavendishii produces immense clusters of ripe and well- 

 flavoured fruit, plants only four feet and a half high; will 

 yearly produce about eighty pounds. M. ddeca is another 

 dwarf species, and in 1838 ripened a cluster of fruit in the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh which weighed fifty 

 pounds. These dwarf bananas are now being cultivated in 

 Europe expressly for their fruit, which is very delicious when 

 perfectly ripened. They are Chinese plants, and will soon be 

 introduced into the West India Islands, where they will 

 entirely supplant the large varieties. 



Mi/rtus Pimenta, or, more properly, Pimento, Vulgaris, is 

 the Jamaica pepper or allspice; there is no beauty in the 

 flowers the leaves are highly aromatic, and it is a handsome 

 evergreen. (Soil No. 9.) 



Nepenthes (Pitcher-plant). There are two species of 

 this plant. N. distillatbria is an esteemed and valuable 

 plant in European collections, and we are not aware of there 

 being any in this country, except in Philadelphia. The 

 leaves are lanceolate and sessile ; from their extremity there 

 is a spiral, attached to which are long inflated appendages 

 that are generally half full of water, which appears to be 

 confined within them by a lid with which the appendages are 

 surmounted; hence the name of pitcher plant. We have 

 never observed the lids close again when once open. Writers 

 have called it an herbaceous plant, but it is properly a climbing 

 shrub. The pot in which it grows should be covered with 

 moss, and the roots liberally supplied with water every day. 

 It delights to be in a moist state. The flowers are small, and 

 in long spikes. The plant is of easy culture, and even rapid 

 in growth : a plant with us only nineteen months old is now 

 five feet high. (Soil No. 5.) 



Pancratium is a genus of hot-house bulbs, and now only 

 contains five species. They are all free-flowering. Several 

 of them are handsome and fragrant. P. maritimum and P. 

 ve.recundum are the finest; the flowers are white, in large 

 umbels; petals long, recurved, and undulate. P. littoralis, 

 P. speciosum, and P. caribazum, are now given to the "enus 

 Flymenocdllis, and are fine flowering species. Care must bo 

 taken not to give them water while dormant. Th( soil ought 



