figured in the Botanical Periodicals. 



235 



so easily ocur ; for, independently of their greater quantity of fluid, their 

 cuticle does not admit its ready evaporation : it is protected as in a bottle. 

 But although these juices are prevented by so thin a membrane from 

 escaping, still that same membrane easily admits the admission of moisture ; 

 a gathered leaf will remain long before it becomes flaccid and withered ; 

 but when it is in that state, if put into water, it quickly regains its wonted 

 plumpness : which yields a clear proof of the peculiar properties of its cover- 

 ing, or of the internal organisation of this curious tribe." 



Tm tuberosa, a Native of Ireland and England ; with a successful Mode of 

 cultivating it. — Our very valuable contributor, the Rev. W. T. Bree, shows, 

 in a communication to the Mag. Kat. Hist., vol. iv. p. 28., that this plant 

 {Jig. 41.) grows wild in two situations in the neighbourhood of Cork, one 



of which is a dry old hedge bank, at about 

 the distance of a quarter of an hour's walk 

 from that city. He likewise remarks, that 

 in his own garden this plant blossoms but 

 rarely, irregularly, and, on the whole, unsa- 

 tisfactorily. As this case may be compara- 

 tively general, I hope to be forgiven citing 

 here the remarks I have elsewhere pre- 

 sented. To blossom Pv'is tuberosa satisfac- 

 torily, do thus ; — " Let it stand two or 

 three years in succession in the same spot ; 

 then, and oftener if you wish to increase it, 

 dig up its tubers as soon as its leaves, by 

 turning yellow, indicate its growth finished 

 for the season : this will be usually in July. 

 Divide the tubers all you please, for even 

 small fragments of these will produce plants ; 

 but just in proportion to the smallness of 

 the divided portions will be the time occu- 

 pied in their acquiring a sufficient vigour to 

 produce blossoms. The tubers are shrivel- 

 led and weakened by being dried, being very 

 far less patient of di'ying than bulbs of crocus, tulip, and hyacinth. Divide, 

 them, therefore, as soon as dug up, and replant them immediately 6 in. 

 deep, in a compost formed of half friable loam, and half leaf mould, or 

 old hot-bed dung rotted to the consistence of soil. Let the situation be a 

 dry bed or border at the base of a wall, with a southern aspect, and plant 

 the tubers close to the wall, or only at a few inches from it. Thus treated, 

 /'ris tuberosa, in the Botanic Garden at Bury St. Edmunds, every spring 

 exhibits its peculiarly coloured and constructed and delicately fragrant 

 flowers, and occasionally also produces seeds : these, if sown the moment 

 they are ripe, produce plants which flower in the fourth year of their age. 

 One observance in the cultivation of this plant should be absolute ; never 

 to stir the soil within a foot of it, after the 1st of September; for it will 

 by this time have commenced the emission of roots for the imbibition of 

 the requisite energies for its next year's flowering, although it may not 

 send its foliage above ground to tell you so until even November. This 

 last remark applies to most, perhaps all, hardy bulbous plants, and to 

 many hardy tuberous plants. The figure presented above is admirable in 

 its general outline, but does not portray the peculiar four-edged character 

 of the foliage ; and the plant has, I believe, never such a scaly creeping 

 sucker at its root as is there represented. Plants are now growing in the 

 Botanic Garden, Cambridge, raised from tubers found in some wild situ- 

 ation near Plymouth. The propriety of considering /Vis tuberosa a Bri- 

 tish plant seems therefore now quite established. — J. D. 



