306 GENERAL REVIEW. 



and Continental nurseries, but all the varieties have descended 

 from the old C. pictum, and its descendants promise to be as 

 numerous as those of the Potato or Cabbage. 



Poinsettia. P. pulcherrima is one of the most striking of 

 all ornamental winter-flowering plants, its beauty principally 

 consisting in the brilliant scarlet bracts which form a radiate 

 crown around the somewhat inconspicuous greenish-yellow 

 flowers. There is a variety having creamy-white bracts, and 

 Messrs Veitch and Mr Bull have raised seminal varieties 

 differing in colour and shape of the bracts. 



P. pulcherrima major (Veitch) has broader and smoother 

 bracts than those of the type, and is fully a fortnight or three 

 weeks earlier. 



P. pulcherrima rosea carminata (Bull). The bracts of this 

 variety are of a distinct rosy carmine hue, and broader and 

 flatter than in the type, so that a rounder and fuller head is 

 formed. 



A monstrous variety, having a clustered head of small bracts, 

 was introduced to this country from North American gardens 

 by Messrs Veitch in 1875. This plant evidently a variety of 

 P. pulcherrima was discovered by M. Roezl, in the gardens 

 of a small Indian village in the Mexican State of Guerrero, 

 in May 1873. The flower -heads were 14-18 inches across, 

 and about 6 inches in height. The bracts are scarlet, tinged 

 with violet, and last in perfection several weeks, or even 

 months. The plant was sent by M. Roezl to Mr J. Buchanan 

 of New York (see ' Garden,' vol. iv. p. 143). 



All the varieties are readily increased in the spring months 

 by cuttings of the young growth, with a heel of old wood 

 attached; or the last year's stems may be cut into separate 

 eyes, as in the case of the Grape-vine, and inserted in a genial 

 bottom-heat : these grow away readily. Some propagate this 

 plant after the bracts make their appearance by taking off the 

 tops and striking them in a moist genial bottom-heat in a close 

 case, the principal object of this method which is also prac- 

 tised with the Chrysanthemum and Gardenia being to obtain 

 dwarf plants in small pots for decorative purposes. The 

 flowers are small and fleshy, and seed may be obtained by 

 artificial fertilisation. A seminal or hybrid variety of dwarf 

 shrubby habit is a desideratum we hope to see produced. A 

 hybrid between Poinsettia and some of the showy-flowered 

 Euphorbiads might possibly be obtained. 



