THE ASTER FAMILY. 253 



be so perfect. Fine blooms and the production of seed cannot 

 go together. The stoppage of growth in the plants by keeping 

 them thinned out is said to largely determine the production of 

 seed. At the middle of October, or when the season is so far 

 advanced as to risk any danger from the frost, the seed-pods 

 are cut away with a stem some 6 or 8 inches long, and the 

 practice is to tie them up in bundles, a half-a-dozen or so to- 

 gether, and hang them up in a dry loft or greenhouse, and use 

 fire to finally dry the pods, should the weather be continuously 

 damp and wet.* As soon as dry enough, the seeds are rubbed 

 roughly out of the pod, put into paper bags, and hung up in a 

 dry place, and cleaned at leisure for sowing in early spring." 



Sow the seeds in February in well-drained pots or pans of 

 rich sandy earth in heat, and prick them off into pots when 

 sufficiently large. After all danger from spring frosts is over, 

 plant the young seedlings out in beds of light rich earth, where 

 they will grow rapidly, and flower the first or second year. 

 Select the best flowers, and throw away the bad ones, or keep 

 the tubers for stocks on which to graft new kinds in the spring. 



Dahlia (Georgina) coccinea (see ' Bot. Mag.,' t. 762 ; see also 

 t. 1885, a and b) appears to have been one of the first of the 

 cultivated kinds, and bears single flowers of a bright scarlet 

 colour, the disc-florets being golden yellow. This is now in 

 cultivation as a showy border plant, and is supposed to be the 

 original kind whence our improved florists' varieties were ob- 

 tained; but there are scarcely any modern forms that at all 

 approach it in brilliancy of colour, if we except " Charles Back- 

 house." It flowers late in the autumn, seeds freely, produces 

 a copious supply of potent pollen, and ought to be invaluable 

 to the hybridiser in improving the colour of existing varieties. 

 It is questionable whether this is a genuine species, for I find 

 the florets of the ray very irregularly developed, some being 

 quite sterile owing to the suppresssion of the stigmas, while in 

 some flowers I find the stigmas partly normal and partly petal- 

 oid. Hybrids between this brilliant old plant and D. imperialis, 

 a tall-growing species, with snowy, long-petalled, bell-shaped 

 flowers, ought to give a most gorgeous race of varieties quite 

 distinct from those now in cultivation, and far more elegant in 

 form and brilliant in colour, especially for conservatory decora- 

 tion during winter, or for culture in the open air. Attention 



* The stems may be cut on the approach of frost, and placed in bottles 

 of water in a warm, dry, and sunny vinery, where the seeds will ripen 

 better than if left in the open air ; or, perhaps, flowering shoots when in 

 bud might be rooted by circumvallation, or as cuttings, and removed to a 

 dry sunny house to flower and ripen their seeds. 



