Treatmetit of Brugmdfisia suaveolens. 37 



We shall be most happy to receive these accounts, and 

 congratulate our correspondent on having succeeded in grati- 

 fying his sight and scent with the odour and splendour of the 

 exquisite blossoms of the Brugmansm. We once saw a fine 

 large spreading-headed specimen of this shrub, exhibiting 

 even a greater number of flowers than our correspondent's 

 plant produced. It was night, and the fragrance of the blos- 

 soms pervaded the conservatory ; while the delicate whiteness 

 of its large pendulous bells, contrasted with its ample green 

 foliage, and as viewed in the imperfect illumination of candle- 

 light, made it a grand and exhilarating spectacle, one that to 

 us seemed Orientally luxurious. This was at Bury St. Ed- 

 mund's, in the conservatory of John F. Leathes, Esq. ; and 

 the enthusiastic Mr. Dean Walker, who was then delivering 

 lectures on astronomy in the town, was one of our party, and 

 so afi^ected was he with the sight, that throwing himself into a 

 spacious arm-chair, which, with judicious taste, had been 

 placed beneath the branches of the plant, he exclaimed, in 

 the words of Virgil, — 



" Tityre ! tu patulse recubans sub tegmine" plantse. 



This splendid specimen was under the care of the gar- 

 dener Mr. Goodchild, who loved plants for their own beauty 

 and interestingness ; and as the Brugmansm had doubt- 

 less been for many years part of the furniture of the 

 conservatory, it probably owed this prodigious effort of 

 blossoming to its having been long confined in the very pot 

 in which we saw it, and to its having had its demands for 

 water most constantly, yet moderately and judiciously, sup- 

 plied. 



We have recently heard that the Brugmansm has been 

 made to blossom during the past summer, most successfully, 

 by the lady of T. Bridgman, Esq., of Weston, Suffolk ; a lady 

 who is, moreover, sedulously attentive to the cultivation of 

 the splendid species of the nat. ord. Amaryllia'^<^, and who 

 blooms them in greater vigour, splendour, and profusion than 

 any one besides in that county. We should feel much 

 obliged would this lady communicate the mode adopted by 

 her to bloom the Brugmansfa; so successfully ; and we have 

 no doubt that this lady could furnish, besides, many a useful 

 and original hint on the culture of the Amarylli(/^<^, the 

 result of her own numerous experiments and great experience. 

 We most respectfully solicit the favour of her remarks. 



J. D. 



D 3 



