176 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 480. 



room near the window, it grew without trouble. Nor can I 

 succeed with the robust hybrids raised from it by Mr. B. S. 

 Williams, of London, such as Mrs. Garfield, Mrs. William Lee, 

 George Firth, Comte de Germiny, etc. My bulbs of the first 

 two hybrids deteriorated, and I finally gave them to Mr. Pfister, 

 who succeeded in the course of a few years in developing 

 magnificent show specimens with them. All these plants flower 

 in autumn, the scapes bearing umbels of from four to five 

 flowers, varying from a bright rosy color to deep scarlet, con- 

 spicuously netted with a deeper red. These plants are ever- 

 green, and water should, therefore, never be withheld entirely. 

 A writer in the Gartenflora recommends that all these species 

 and hybrids should be placed in the stove when making their 

 growth. " In winter, when at rest, they should not be watered 

 at all, except when the leaves begin to shrivel, and they should 

 be kept in a cool house until they begin to push up their young 

 leaves." 



Hippeastrum procerum (Amaryllis Rayneri), the Blue Amaryl- 

 lis, Lily of the Empress, Imperial Amaryllis and Amaryllis Impe- 

 ratrice, a singular Brazilian plant, departs widely from all other 

 species of the genus, the bulb being large, stem-like, ovoid. The 

 neck stands high above the ground, while all the bulbs of the 

 other species are more or less deeply buried in the soil in their 

 native haunts. The leaves, which hang down on the sides of 

 the bulb, are bright green, edged narrowly with yellowish 

 brown. They are two or three feet long. The flowers are 

 blue. The species is found near Petropolis, from whence it 

 was introduced to France, and flowered first in 1863. Mr. 

 Lietze, the well-known botanical collector at Rio Janeiro, 

 writes me that it grows on the mountain-sides in rather drv 

 and sunny openings. My bulbs never flowered, and always 

 perished after I had them a few years in cultivation. In The 

 Garden (vol. xlv., p. 350) a fine plate was published, and your 

 London correspondent, Mr. W. Watson, gave the following 

 account: "According to Mr. Baker, as many as twelve flowers 

 are produced in a single umbel, each flower being six inches 

 long, but the Kew plants produced five and seven flowers, re- 

 spectively. . . . The largest specimen has a stem-like neck 

 two feet long, crowned with ten falcate leaves, and is a striking 

 plant even when not in flower. The plant is evergreen under 

 cultivation. . . . Cultivated in a pot it lives and grows slowly, 

 but does not flower. Planted out in good loam, well drained, 

 in a position where it will get plenty of light all the year round 

 and in an intermediate temperature, it appears to be quite at 

 home. I may add that in the same house and under the same 

 treatment Buphane disticha and Brunsvigia Josephinaa have 

 flowered." 



Hippeastrum rutilum, the Fiery Amaryllis, or Orange Lily, 

 is a splendid species, and with its many varieties is one of the 

 most valuable of the entire genus, since it grows easily and 

 flowers profusely. It is a native of southern Brazil, where also 

 the other varieties, varying in color from salmon, saffron, 

 bright yellow and pale pink to a bright scarlet and fiery orange, 

 are found. The typical species is a strong-growing plant with 

 bright crimson flowers with a green keel extending half-way 

 up the segments. The variety H. rutilum fulgidum (Amaryllis 

 Brasiliensis), with bright scarlet flowers, is showier. Other 

 beautiful varieties are H. rutilum equestriforme and H. ruti- 

 lum subbarbatum, with umbels of brilliant orange-colored 

 flowers, borne on scapes often three feet high. H. rutilum 

 crocatum bears smaller saffron-colored flowers, while those of 

 H. rutilum citrinum are bright yellow. H. rutilum acuminatum 

 (H. pulveralentum) is a variety with pale pink flowers. One of 

 the most strikingly colored varieties, Ignescens, with bright 

 orange-scarlet flowers, has lately been introduced in large 

 quantities by Mr. William Bull, of London. I still have most 

 of these varieties, and all do very well, especially Ignescens. 

 They all grow in southern Brazil in the deep black vegetable 

 soil, and Dean Herbert's collector found H. pulveralentum in 

 such soil with a scape three feet high and the leaves as long, 

 and the variety Equestriforme was discovered by Mr. Herbert 

 growing unperceived in a mass of parasitic plants, Cereus and 

 Pitcairnea, which had been torn off from the face of a rock. 

 In the rage for new plants which marks our time, these beau- 

 tiful Amaryllis have been nearly forgotten, being at present 

 rarely found in cultivation, though they are much more beau- 

 tiful and valuable than the majority of plants now offered for 

 sale. It is true they do not offer good material for the com- 

 mercial florist, being slowly increased and flowering only once 

 in the course of a year, but they are capital plants for the pri- 

 vate flower cultivator and the amateur. This holds true of all 

 the Hippeastrum species and varieties, and especially of the 

 standard hybrids. 



Hippeastrum pardinum, Spotted Amaryllis. This unique 

 species is of comparatively recent introduction, having been 



discovered in the Andes of Peru by Mr. Pearce in 1866, and 

 sent to Messrs. Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea, where it flowered 

 in 1867. It is so beautiful and so unlike anything else in the 

 line of Amaryllis that it created a genuine sensation. The 

 segments are broad, regular, of a creamy white or yellowish- 

 green ground color, densely spotted and flushed with blood- 

 red. The flowers are very short-tubed and the umbel always 

 consists of two flowers. Not being a very strong grower it 

 needs careful treatment. A number of different colored plates 

 of this plant have been published, but the one that appeared in 

 The Botanical Magazine (plate 564 and 565) is a correct repre- 

 sentation of the wild species as introduced by Mr. Pearce. A 

 fine form, with exceedingly broad segments of a bright green- 

 ish-yellow color, freckled with blood-red, was figured on plate 

 633 of Flore des Serres. Many very beautiful hybrids have 

 been raised from this species, but most of them are difficult 

 to grow. The type does not seem to be in cultivation at 

 present; at least, all my specimens differ more or less from 

 the plate in Tlie Botanical Magazine. The exact locality where 

 the first bulbs were collected in Peru is not known. 



Hippeastrum Leopoldii, Leopold's Amaryllis, another noble 

 species, was discovered by Mr. Pearce in the Andes of Peru 

 and flowered by the Messrs. Veitch in 1869. It was correctly 

 figured in plate 475 and 476 of The Floral Magazine, and all 

 other illustrations are incorrect. This is really a glorious spe- 

 cies, but I doubt whether the typical form is found to-day in 

 cultivation, and, as in the case of H. pardinum, we are not 

 acquainted with the locality where Mr. Pearce gathered his 

 bulbs. The plant is of a robust constitution, two scapes being 

 usually produced by one bulb, each carrying an umbel of two 

 flowers. They are very large, widely open, short-tubed, with 

 broad well-formed segments, which are white at the tip, bright 

 red in the middle, with a bifid white keel in the lower half of 

 the red, and a large greenish-white throat. The original bulbs 

 have evidently been lost and their progeny differ in many par- 

 ticulars, though their form is the same. All the bulbs which 

 have flowered with me vary more or less in the red color and 

 lack the bifid white keel in the lower half of the red which 

 makes the type so strikingly beautiful. Collectors in Peru 

 should not overlook these two unique species. Since the intro- 

 duction of H. Leopoldii a new era in Amaryllis hybridization 

 has begun. All the best modern hybrids are of a robust habit 

 and healthy growth, short-tubed, and show very broad segments. 

 The common hybrids of H. vittatum which we find mostly in 

 cultivation cannot compare in beauty with the kinds which 

 have been obtained by using H. Leopoldii in cross-fertilization. 

 The hybrids coming nearest to this species are John Heal and 

 Hendersonii coccinea, but they are, unfortunately, rather diffi- 

 cult and slow in producing offsets. 



Milwaukee, Wis. 



H. Nehrling. 



The Hardy Plant Border. 



AMONG early spring-flowering alpine plants there is no 

 more interesting genus than that of Draba. At this 

 time, in the rock garden, there are several species in bloom, 

 and although the flowers are small, the compact dwarf habit 

 of the plants, which cling so closely to the ground in the 

 pockets made among the rocks, makes them most interesting 

 to lovers of modest plants. They are easily raised from seed 

 sown in spring, and when they are large enough they may be 

 planted out in the nursery for raising or testing hardy herba- 

 ceous plants early in May, and by the end of summer they 

 make good-sized plants for transplanting to their permanent 

 places in the rock garden. A good time to transplant them 

 is about the end of August, so as they will be established in 

 their new quarters before severe weather sets in. They grow 

 best in a dry sunny position, and care ought to be taken that 

 they are not planted where water will lodge around them in 

 winter. Although they love a dry sunny place, yet they like 

 a deep moist soil for their roots to penetrate. Last fall, when 

 transplanting from the nursery beds a number of species of 

 this genus, 1 was interested to know how deep some of their 

 roots pierced the soil. By careful digging I found that they 

 went down twelve and fifteen inches, although sometimes 

 the part of the plant above ground was not more than one 

 inch in height. This shows that they ought not to be planted 

 in shallow pockets in the rock garden, but in places where 

 their roots can get deep down into the earth away from the 

 hot dry soil on the surface of the ground. 



Draba brumasfolia is a lovely tufted dwarf plant with small 

 linear ciliated acute leaves, and it bears pretty, small yellow 

 flowers which are produced slightly above the foliage. This 

 dwarf plant has been grown here for a number of years and is 

 perfectly hardy. D. borealis grows close to the ground and 



