108 THE TREE PROPAGATOR AND PLANTER. 



greenhouse. It delights in good sandy peat one 

 part, and maiden loam one part ; both should be 

 merely chopped up with the spade, but not sifted. 

 Use good drainage in the pot, and mix some broken 

 charcoal among the compost. 



The plants may be propagated \>y cuttings and by 

 seed, but as they will grow from cuttings freely, it is 

 not necessary to sow seed. Select the firm young wood 

 during the spring and early summer months ; trim the 

 cuttings neatly at the base, and clip the leaves off them 

 half-way up, and then insert them in pots firmly filled 

 -with fine sandy peat, using a good proportion of sand. 

 Water them, and place a bell-glass over them, and set 

 the pots in a shady part of the greenhouse or propa- 

 gating-house to strike ; pot off as soon as they are well 

 rooted, stop the points of the shoots, and continue the 

 plants in the greenhouse. 



The Kalosanthes (Crassidacece) . 



This is a tribe of plants possessed of an enduring 

 constitution under heat and drought. Crassulacece 

 means " thick-leaved," and that is all, so that it convej T s 

 no idea as to the characteristics of the flower. But the 

 present genus possesses flowers of great beauty and 

 substance. Kalosanthes miniata is one of the grandest- 

 flowering varieties we possess. In well-grown and 

 large specimens it forms an object worth seeing, with 

 its numerous heads of scarlet flowers, which are of 

 great substance and of long duration, being fragrant 

 also. Young plants should be stopped, to induce dwarf 

 and finely formed specimens ; when in flower they look 

 well, but a plant three or four years old forms a still 

 finer feature when in full flower. 



The propagation of this species is by cuttings, by 

 seed, and by offsets ; but that of K. miniata and its 

 allies is by cuttings of old or young growth, whichever 

 may be most convenient. After a plant has done 

 flowering, immediately cut it back, and put the cuttings 

 into pots filled with sandy peat and maiden loam ; 



