H E L 



HEL 



properly shaded till they are well rooted. They 

 should afterwards be gradually inured to the 

 open air, being protected in winter as there may 

 be occasion. 



The seeds are often long in coming up. 



In the second sort the seed may be sown in 

 the early spring, as April, on a bed of light 

 fresh earth, or where they are to remain. In 

 the first case they should be removed where they 

 are to grow in the autumn. These plants should 

 not be often removed afterwards. 



The third sort is raised in the same manner 

 as the first, and should have free air in the sum- 

 mer, and be protected occasionally in the winter. 



The other sorts are all increased in the same 

 manner as the second, being pricked out while 

 young, and in the autumn removed to the places 

 where they are to grow and flower. 



As the biennial sorts either decay or dwindle 

 after flowering, they should be raised in fresh 

 supplies every year from seed. 



These plants are very ornamental in the beds, 

 borders, clumps, and other parts of pleasure- 

 grounds, and some of them among other potted 

 plants. 



HELIANTHUS, a genus containing plants 

 of the hardy herbaceous flowery kinds. 



It belongs to the class and order Syngenesia 

 Polygamia Frustranea, and ranks in the natural 

 order of Composites Oppositifolice. 



The characters are : that the calyx is com- 

 mon imbricate, somewhat squarrose, expanded ; 

 scales oblong, broadish at the base, gaping every 

 where at the tips : the corolla compound radi- 

 ate : corollets hermaphrodite, very numerous in 

 the disk : females fewer, much longer in the 

 ray: proper of the hermaphrodites cylindric, 

 shorter than the common calyx, bellying at the 

 base, orbicular, depressed : border five-toothed, 

 sharp, spreading : of the females ligular, lan- 

 ceolate, quite entire, very long : the stamina 

 in the hermaphrodites consist of five fila- 

 ments, curved, inserted below the belly of the 

 corollet, the length of the tube : anther cy- 

 lindric, tubular : the pistillum in the herma- 

 phrodites is an oblong germ: style filiform, 

 length of the corollet : stigma two-parted, re- 

 flex : in the females, germ very small: style 

 and stigma none: there is no pericarpium : 

 unchanged calyx : seeds in the hermaphrodites 

 solitary, oblong, blunt, four-cornered, com- 

 pressed at the opposite angles ; the inner ones 

 narrower, crowned with two lanceolate, acute 

 deciduous chaffs ; in the females none : the re- 

 ceptacle chaffy, large, flat : chaffs lanceolate, 

 acute, two separating each seed, deciduous. 



The species cultivated are : \. H. annuus, 

 Annual Sun-flower ; 2. II. indicia, Dwarf An- 

 nual Sun-flower; 3. H. multijlorus, Perennial 



Sun-flower; 4. H. tuberows, Tuberous-rooted 

 Sun-flower, or Jerusalem Artichoke. 



There are several other species of the perennial 

 sort that may be cultivated. 



The first has an annual root : the stem single 

 or branched, from five or six to ten or fourteen 

 feet in height, and in hot climates twenty or 

 more ; when vigorous, the size of a man's arm: 

 the leaves are alternate, a span or a span and a 

 half in length, and almost as much in breadth, 

 rough, serrate, acuminate, hanging down at the 

 end, on long petioles : the flower single (some- 

 times several), nodding, a foot or more in dia- 

 meter. Tt is a native of Mexico, flowering from 

 June to October. Martyn observes, that as to 

 its turning with the sun, it is a vulgar error ; 

 Gerarde could never observe it ; and he has seen 

 four flowers on the same stem pointing to the 

 four cardinal points. 



There are varieties with double flowers, deep 

 yellow, and sulphur-coloured. 



The second species is perhaps only a variety 

 of the first, though constant ; but the leaves are 

 convex above in the disk, and of a darker green. 

 The peduncles are less thickened at top, or 

 rather of an equal thickness every where, whence 

 the flowers nod less. The scales of the calyx, 

 except the inmost row, grow out into petioled 

 pendulous leaflets. It grows only from eighteen 

 inches to three feet in height. It probably 

 comes from Mexico or Peru. 



The third has the stem and peduncles sca- 

 brous : the leaves cordate-ovate : the calyxes 

 loosely imbricate, neither squarrose nor droop- 

 ing, consisting of forty to fifty scales: the stem* 

 many, upright, from 'five or six feet to eight or 

 nine in height, branching, the stem and each 

 branch terminated by a flower, the principal one 

 sometimes nine or ten inches in diameter, the 

 lateral ones gradually smaller : the leaves some 

 opposite, others alternate. There is a constant 

 succession of flowers from July to November. — 

 It is a native of Virginia. 



In the fourth species the stems are several, 

 rough, hairy, streaked, from eight, ten, or 

 twelve to sixteen feet in height, the size of a 

 child's arm : the leaves alternate, light green, 

 rough, pointed, eight inches broad, and ten or 

 eleven inches long, deeply serrate, smaller to- 

 wards the top : the branches many, long, from 

 bottom to top : the flowers terminating, small ; 

 florets m the ray twelve or thirteen. These sel- 

 dom blow before October, and in some seasons 

 they do not expand at all. The seeds never 

 ripen here : the roots creeping, with many 

 tubers clustered together, thirty, forty, or fifty 

 from one plant, measuring a peck, or in good 

 soils half a bushel ; they are, like the common 

 potatoe, red on the outside, and very irregular 

 3 L 2 



