4.74) Transactions of the London Horticultural Society. 



keels of large ships ; and the original tree is growing with very great rapidity 

 in a poor soil and cold climate. 



" The stem of this tree, near the ground, presented, in July, many very slen- 

 der shoots about three inches long. These were then pulled off and reduced 

 to about an incli in length, with a single mature leaf upon the upper end of 

 each, and the cuttings were then planted so deeply in the soil, that the buds 

 at the bases of the leaves were but just visible above the surface of the soil. 

 The cuttings were then covered with bell glasses in pots, and put upon the 

 flue of a hothouse, and subjected to a temperature of about 80°. Water was 

 very abundantly given ; but the under surfaces of the leaves were not wetted. 

 These were in the slightest degree faded, though they were fully exposed to 

 the sun ; and roots were emitted in about fifteen days. I subjected a few 

 cuttings, taken from the bearing branches of a mulberry tree, to the same 

 mode of management, and with the same result ; and I think it extremely 

 probable, that the different varieties of camellia, and trees of almost every 

 species, exclusive of the fir tribe, might be propagated with perfect success 

 and facility by the same means. 



" Evergreen trees, of some species, possess the power of ripening their fruit 

 during winter. The common ivy, and the loquat, are well known examples of 

 this ; and this circumstance, combined with many others, led me to infer that 

 the leaves of such trees possess in a second year the same, or nearly the same, 

 power as in the first. I therefore planted, about a month ago, some cut- 

 tings of the old double-blossomed white and Warratah camellia, having re- 

 duced the wood to little more than half an inch in length, and cut it off 

 obliquely, so as to present a long surface of it ; and I reduced it further by 

 paring it very thin, at and near to its lower extremities. The leaves con- 

 tinue to look perfectly fresh ; and the buds in more than one instance have 

 produced shoots of more than an inch in length, and apparently possessing 

 perfect health and much vigour. Water has been very abundantly given : be- 

 cause I conceived that the flow of arterial sap from the leaf would be so 

 great, comparatively with the quantity of the bark and alburnum of the cut- 

 tings, as to preclude the possibility of the rotting of these. 



" The cuttings above described present, in the organisation, a considerable 

 resemblance to seedling trees at different periods of the growth of the latter. 

 The bud very closely resembles the plumule ; and the leaf, the cotyledon, ex- 

 tended into a seed leaf; and the organ, which has been, and is, called a radicle, 

 is certainly a caudex, and not a root. It is capable of being made to extend, 

 in some cases, to more than two hundred times its first length, between two 

 articulations, a power which is not possessed in any degree by the roots of 

 trees. Whether the caudex of the cuttings of camellia, above mentioned, 

 have emitted, or will or will not emit roots, I am not yet prepared to decide ; 

 but I entertain very confident hopes of success." 



35. Notes on the Cultivation of ChlidantJius fragrans. By the Rev. F. Belfield, 

 F.H.S,, of Primley Hill, near Newton Abbot, Dorsetshire. Read Septem- 

 ber 5. 1837. 



Nine middle-sized roots were put into dry earth, and placed in the hottest 

 part of the stove in December, and kept perfectly dry, " till the latter end of 

 the month of March, when three roots were potted, watered, and kept in the 

 hothouse ; of these two very shortly showed their blossom buds, but only one 

 came to perfection, and did not seed. 



" In the end of April the six remaining roots were planted in front of the 

 pine pit, and in the following month three of them flowered in the greatest 

 perfection, but did not show any disposition to form a seed pod. 



" In the same border, I have another bulb, which has been growing there 

 two years, quite unprotected in winter. This in the month of June surprised 

 me by not only throwing up a noble flowering stem, far exceeding any of the 



