JANOAET 2, 1913. 



The Florists^ Review 



18 



crow best in midwinter, doing espe- 

 cially well in a house which feels cold 

 and clammy and lacks the geniality of 

 atmosphere so conducive to the welfare 

 of the majority of greenhouse plants. 

 Ab the calceolarias are now at their 

 period of most rapid growth, they 

 should never be allowed to become 

 stunted in their pots. Use a light but 

 fairly rich soil and one which will be 

 at the same time quite porous. I like 

 a compost of fibrous, yellow loam, to 

 which is added some cow manure, well 

 dried, and passed through a half-inch 

 screen, some leaf-mold, sand, soot and 

 fine charcoal. Thoroughly mix these to- 

 gather and you will find that the plants 

 will revel in it. Always keep them as 

 close to the glass as possible and g've 

 them an abundance of air. Remem- 

 ber always that green aphis is the arch 

 enemy of calceolarias, and if they are 

 not fumigated weekly they will soon 

 get into a condition which will qualify 

 them for the rubbish heap. 



Fibrous-rooted Begonias. 



The last part of December or early 

 January is a good time to make sow- 

 ings of any of the fibrous-rooted bego- 

 nias, such as Erfordii, Vernon in its 

 several colors, Snow Queen, semperflo- 

 rens rosea, Fairy Queen and others, 

 which are becoming increasingly popu- 

 lar as bedding plants. The fact that 

 they are persistent bloomers, of a neat 

 habit, and succeed equally well in 

 either sunshine or shade, marks them 

 at once as a class of plants which have 

 come to stay. Be sure the pans in 

 which these are to be sown are well 

 drained; one and one-half <to two inches 

 of fine soil over a coarser material is 

 sufficient. Water the pans well before 

 sowing the seeds, and as these are fine 

 they must be sown with great care and 

 not covered at all. Cover the pans 

 with glass, keep shaded, and in a close, 

 moist house they will not be long in 

 germinating, when they must have full 

 n^ht and be gradually moved to 

 slightly cooler quarters. 



Sweet-scented Verbenas. 



Move one or two of the old verbena 

 plants into a warm, moist house. Spray 

 freely and they will soon throw out 

 a nice crop of succulent cuttings. These, 

 rubbed off with a heel and inserted in 

 a warm cutting bench, should nearly 

 all root, provided the sand is porous 

 and the cuttings are not overwatered. 

 No mistake will be made in working 

 up a good-sized batch of this always 

 popular, sweet-scented plant, which 

 every plant purchaser seems to want. 



Dimorphotlieca Aurantiaca. 



Where a really quick crop is wanted, 

 the charming South African annual, 

 Dimorphotheca aurantiaca, should be 

 tried. The fine orange-yellow flowers 

 have a faculty of closing up the first 

 night after being cut, but later stay 

 fully expanded and are satisfactory 

 keepers. Seed sown now can be 

 flowered within a couple of months. 

 Try a few on a shallow bench or in 

 flats. Do not sow too thickly if you 

 want plants which will carry good 

 stems. This plant succeeds well in a 

 carnation temperature. 



DASTUBION AS A LAWN PLANT. 



A translation of the word dasylirion 

 would seem to be " hairy lily, ' ' but above 

 ground there is in this plant no notice- 



Dasylirion "Wheeleti as a Lawn Plant in Gdifomia. 



able hairiness on the leaves or about the 

 flowers, so it may be that the vestiture 

 of the bulb is hairlike, otherwise the 

 reason for the name hairy lily appears 

 to be one of those things which no one 

 can find out. The Indian name is 

 "sotol" (accent on second syllable), 

 but what sotol means is also unknown 

 to me. 



Dasylirion Wheeleri is a native of New 

 Mexico and the eastern half of Arizona, 

 where on its native heath it grows four 

 or five feet high, being apparently 

 dwarfed by aridity and sterility of the 

 soil, or its non-cultivation, but it takes 

 kindly to cultivation and to the in- 

 fluences of civilization as exemplified 

 by irrigation, and in lawns and gardens 

 grows much larger and finer than in its 

 desert home. 



The plant shown herewith, growing at 

 San Bernardino, Cal., is nearly fourteen 

 feet high. The color of the flowers is 

 cream-white or ivory-white. The flowers 

 are sweet, and attractive to bees and 

 flies. The leaves are nearly flat, three 

 feet long, slender and narrow, and bor- 

 dered with small sharp hooks pointing 

 outward to the tip of the leaves. This 

 flower stem grew up as in a night, or to 

 be more exact, in about three weeks. 

 The flowers are clustered along the cau- 

 dex on little branchlets which cling 

 closely to the main stem, so that the 

 caudex looks like a long club of matted 

 flowers. The flowers, of course, are 

 individually quite small and inconspicu- 

 ous, so that the whole flower stem looks 

 like one large, long flower. 



W. G. Wright. 



