Culture of Cineraria cruenta. 



153 



Art. VII. On the Cultivation and Improvement of Cineraria 

 cruenta. By Mr. James Drummond, A. L.S. C. M. H.S. 

 Curator of the Botanic Garden at Cork. 



Sir, 



The different species of screen-house Cinerarias are great 

 favourites with me, and especially the C. cruenta (Jig. 48.) ; for, 

 . besides the great beauty and variety in the flowers of the latter 

 species, it produces them in the months of 

 December, January, and February, when 

 it has but few rivals in the green-house 

 and in the months of March and April 

 its fine purple blossoms form a beautiful 

 contrast with the Acacia decipiens, and 

 other plants of that class ; and, in my 

 opinion, it surpasses even the hawthorn 

 in the fragrance of its flowers ; yet, from 

 some cause or other, we seldom see it 

 cultivated to the extent it merits. Should 

 the following account of the method I 

 have followed for some years of growing 

 this plant appear to you worth insertion in your valuable Ma- 

 gazine, it may turn the attention of some of your numerous 

 readers to the cultivation of the C. cruenta, the effects of which 

 will, in all probability, be the production of fine double and 

 single varieties, of different colours, as it sports greatly from 

 seed. 



Except in cases when it becomes desirable to preserve any 

 particular variety for its superior beauty, I prefer raising the 

 C. cruenta every year from seeds, which the plant perfects 

 with me in the months of April and May. Care should be 

 taken to select the finest varieties, and those that produce the 

 largest and finest heads or corymbs of flowers. The plants 

 must be daily attended to when ripening their seed, as the 

 flowers retain their beauty until the very day the seeds are c 

 scattered with the wind, a remarkable and valuable property in 

 this fine winter flower. I sow the seeds immediately when ripe, 

 in pots of light rich earth, and place them in a hot-bed. The 

 plants come up very small and feeble at first, but as they get 

 two or three leaves, I plant them singly in pots of the smallest 

 size, and shift them, as I find they require it, into larger ones, 

 giving them the same soil and treatment I give young balsams. 

 By the first of October, if the plants have been well attended 

 to during the summer, they will fill pots nine inches in diame- 

 ter, and be throwing up strong flower-stalks from the centre 

 of each. At this time I place them in an open part of the 



