GREENHOUSE AND HOTHOUSE FLOWERS 167 



habit, combined with their remarkable freedom of flowering and 

 brilliant colours, soon made them great favourites. The Cinerarias 

 are fragrant as well as beautiful. Although they are not fully hardy, 

 they are so far from being tender that they will thrive in a frame 

 until autumn, and afterwards in a cool greenhouse. No indoor 

 plant is easier to grow. Seeds are sown towards the end of 

 spring, and the young plants grown in a frame through the summer, 

 receiving such attention in watering and potting as is called for. 

 The only thing likely to give trouble is green-fly, which worries 

 Cinerarias incessantly, and must be kept down rigorously, or it 

 will spoil the plants. Perhaps the most 

 simple plan of keeping it in subjection 

 is to spray the plants with a decoction 

 of quassia water once a week through- 

 out the summer. The reader should buy 

 a pound of quassia chips at a chemist's, 

 and soak a handful in a gallon of water 

 for a night. 



Clivia (Imantopkyllum). There is not 



CINERARIAS 



a great range of colouring: in the Clivia, A, drainage in pan ; B, compost ; c, surface 



of sand ; D, on which the seeds are 



sown ; E, sowing seeds out of a paper 

 funnel or spout. 



the prevailing shade being orange, but 

 lighter and darker varieties than the 

 type (Clivia miniatd) have been raised, so that one may get salmon 

 and saffron shades if one will, and others approaching scarlet. 

 The plant has long, bright green, strap-shaped leaves, and bears 

 its flowers in a large umbel at the top of a thick, strong stem in 

 winter and spring. The coloured plate shows a plant associated 

 with a white Camellia at Kew, where it was a brilliant feature of 

 the greenhouse towards the close of winter. It thrives in a room. 

 Normal soil suits, and propagation is easily effected by division. 



Coleus. The majority of the Coleuses are grown for their 

 foliage, the flowers being of no value, but there is one notable 

 exception the blue, winter-blooming species called thrysoideus, 



