24 MORE POT-POURRI 



removed from the reserve garden or left alone. In very 

 dry seasons it is best quickly to cut them down ; they 

 flower again well when the rain comes. Michauxia cam- 

 panuloides is flowering now for the second time. I have 

 never grown it before, and its first bloom was in June, 

 while I was away, so that I did not see it in its prime. 

 The seed unfortunately does not ripen here, but it seems 

 to me a plant worthy of all the trouble that biennials 

 give ; and experiments should be tried in growing it. I 

 am now going to try it grown the second year in pots, 

 under glass, in a cool house, in the same way as v a 

 Campanula pyramidalis is grown. I expect it will be 

 very fine. When grown out of doors it should be moved 

 from the seed-bed into a dry sunny place, and it wants as 

 much water as you can give it when about to flower. It is 

 figured in vol. xvii. of Curtis's ' Botanical Magazine,' but 

 the flower there depicted gives little idea of the beauty of 

 the whole plant, although the unusual shape and love- 

 liness of the flower itself are well rendered. Michauxia 

 tchinatchewii (see Thompson's list) is new to me and, I 

 am told, good. 



The Belladonna Lilies, treated as described in my 

 first book, have flowered excellently, many having two 

 flower-stems from apparently the same bulb. I imme- 

 diately sent to Holland for two dozen more, as I believe 

 there has been a disease among them in some places and 

 that they are now rather scarce. As an example of how 

 small a thing will affect the flowering of Cape bulbs, I 

 noted this spring that the leaves in the more northern 

 part of my little bed got injured by frost and east wind 

 not very severely, but slightly and out of that dozen 

 bulbs only one flowered. 



A favourite little plant of mine which I have had for 

 years has flowered unusually well this year. It is called 

 Tricyrtis hirta, and is a small Japanese Lily very quiet in 



