402 GARDEN PLANTS. PART II. 



thus become injurious to plants in their neighbourhood ; whether 

 therefore grown in pots or in the open ground, they require 

 often a new soil. The branches should be cut in closely each 

 year after flowering."* They produce their flowers upon the 

 wood of the current year ; and Sir J. Paxton recommends that 

 they should be pruned in the manner of a vine ; that is, that the 

 stems should be shortened to two or three eyes off the old wood. 

 He states moreover, as does Mackintosh f too, the curious fact, 

 that left to themselves they are shy of setting fruit ; but that 

 they do so readily when impregnated with the pollen of other 

 species in preference to their own. P. racemosa does so with 

 pollen of P. alata. Nearly all are easily propagated by cuttings 

 and layers. 



1. P. adiantifolia. A small slender plant in Calcutta Botanical 

 Gardens, the flowers of which I am unacquainted with. 



2. P. alata. Flowers described as very fragrant, with calyx and 

 petals crimson ; rays variegated, white, purple, and crimson. In 

 Garden of Agri-Horticultural Society, but rarely if ever flowered. 



3. P. Buonaparteana, Sir J. Paxton says is a synonym of 

 P. quadrangularis. 



4. P. Chinensis. Flowers described as white and blue. 



5. P. caerulea. The most common, and certainly one of the 

 handsomest of all ; a very stout, extensively-growing plant, with 

 bright three-lobed leaves, covering a great space of wall or 

 trellis : bears abundantly during the Kain season large flowers 

 with the segments of the calyx and petals pale greenish-white ; 

 styles purplish ; rays of the crown purple at the bottom, white in 

 the middle, blue at the end. Most readily propagated by the 

 numerous young suckers it sends up for a great distance round 

 the spot where it grows. 



6. P. cseruleo -racemosa. A hybrid between the two species 

 whose name it bears : flowers very large and handsome, though 

 not very brilliant, being of a pale lilac colour, prettily relieved 

 with a pure white crown of rays. Cultivated in a large pot, it 

 continues constantly in bloom. It should be repotted with fresh 

 soil annually in the Cold weather. 



7. P. edulis. Flowers described as white fringed with purple, 

 fragrant, but of no great beauty. 



8. P. foetida LOVE-IK- A-MIST. A plant of slender habit : 

 * ' Le Bon Jardinier ' pour 1866, p. 636. f ' Greenhouse,' p. 134. 



