562 Pines and Flowering Plants at l}ropmore. 



cative of affinities wliose existence botanists seem disposed to dispute; 

 for Dr. Hooker has already, so early as in the Botanical Magazine for 

 August, 1833, t. 3256., expressed his dissent from them. 



"Whatever name be determined on for this plant, it is, past a question, 

 one of the loveliest showiest ornaments of the hardy garden vv^hich are 

 yet in cultivation. In p. 107. T have remarked, that, on Sept. 3. 1832, I 

 learned, in the Horticultural Society's Garden, " that a blossom or blos- 

 soms of it had there been just previously impregnated [at least the impreg- 

 nation had been attempted] with the pollen of Petunia nyctaginiflora." On 

 August 13. 1833, I had the pleasure of seeing, in the Society's Garden, a 

 bed of plants of the Petunia (or Nieremberg/«) phoenfcea, and was told, 

 on enquiry, that part of these plants were from the seeds of the impreg- 

 nated blossoms, and that no obvious variation had resulted. Nothing 

 could in splendour exceed this bed : all the branches of all the plants were 

 horizontally decumbent, and, from the nearness of the plants, crossed and 

 interlaced each other so as to perfectly cover the ground from sight; while 

 every branch was a wreath of blossoms ; and the aggregate of all the 

 wreaths was, as it were, a bed or bank, or, if you will, a carpet, of rich rosy 

 purple; relieved, enriched, enlivened, by the garniture of the numerous full 

 green healthy leaves, scarcely more numerous than the blossoms themselves. 

 It was late in the afternoon when T saw this bed ; when, superbly beautiful 

 as it then was, I was told that it was still more so in the middle of a mildly 

 sunny day. The bed, I should think, was 12 ft. or 15 ft. in length, by 3 ft. or 

 4 ft. in breadth : the soil was, I think, a sandy loam ; at all events, a soil not 

 over moist. At the base of the front wall, which has a southern aspect, of 

 the cottage in which I reside, 1 planted, in the end of April, or early in May, 

 out of a pot, a rather small plant of this Petunia (Nieremb^rgM) phoenicea, 

 which I obtained of Mr. Dennis, Chelsea, who had struck it from a cutting 

 in the preceding winter, or early part of spring, and had, up to that time, 

 kept it in a green-house. From the time of my planting it until now (Sep- 

 tember 10.), it has grown and flowered incessantly, and will, doubtless, con- 

 tinue doing so till the frost prevent it : it is trained over the face of the 

 house-wall, and has been very much admired b}' passers by, especially for 

 the last two months, as its extent, and the number of its flowers, through 

 the course of this time, have rendered it very conspicuous and striking: 

 the plant now measures more than 4 ft. in height, by about 3^ ft. in 

 breadth. Mr. Maund, in his Botanic Garden, mentions a plant which is 

 trained to a wall in his garden, and has attained a still greater extent ; 

 and, in a letter dated Bromsgrove, Sept. 9., remarks : — "It is now 10 ft. 

 wide, and 7^ ft. high, regularly covering the whole space, and bearing 

 upwards of twelve hundred expanded blossoms : it is quite a purple 

 blaze." It seeds but sparingly, as out of every thirty flowers certainly 

 not more than one is followed by a seed-vessel and seeds. Petunia 

 nyctaginiflora is in the same condition. It would, perhaps, be well to 

 sow the seeds as soon as ripe, to force them by artificial heat to grow im- 

 mediately (without this, they might, perhaps, lie dormant in the soil until 

 next spring), and to pot off" the plants which may arise from them, and keep 

 them in a green-house through the winter, for planting out early next spring, 

 for the decoration of the garden during the summer and the autumn. It 

 seems generally admitted that plants of it from seeds produce larger flowers 

 than, and are preferable to, plants raised from cuttings : and, as the flowers 

 on my trained plant are not so fine as those on the prostrate plants at 

 Chiswick, the prostrate posture would seem the more congenial of the 

 two. Perhaps a row of plants grown in an open part of a garden between 

 a double row of neat wire hurdles would have a fine effect: their branches 

 would be kept up by, and might be woven withinside, the bars of the 

 hurdles ; and thus the flowers of the plants would be displayed on both 

 sides of, and all over, the floral hedge or bank thus formed. 



