4i6 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 



in a warm house. As soon as they are large enough to handle, the 

 seedlings should be pricked out into large pots or other pans, and grown 

 on until May, with several intervening shifts, early nipping out the 

 leading shoot and so inducing a bushy habit. Then harden off, and 

 plant out on a cloudy day, furnishing each plant with little stakes and 

 tying out the shoots as they grow. This plan will be found preferable 

 to pegging them down like Verbenas ; they should rather be grown hke 

 Geraniums. For indoor flowering similar treatment is required, but for 

 this purpose the Double varieties will be found more effective than the 

 Singles. Named varieties can only be propagated with certainty by 

 means of cuttings which are taken from the young shoots in February 

 and March for indoor striking, or in July and August for outdoor treat- 

 ment. The old plants retained to supply cuttings should be wintered in 

 a warm house, but a high temperature should be avoided throughout the 

 growth of indoor specimens. 

 Description Hybrid forms of Petunia— P. nyctaginijicyt^a x violacea 



Plate 200. _giving an idea of the variation in form and colour among 

 the Singles. Fig. 1 is a section through the flower. 



NIEREMBEEGIAS 



Natural Order Solanace^e. Genus Nierembergia 



NiEREMBERGiA (named in honour of John E. Nieremberg, 1595-1658, a 

 Spanish Jesuit and writer on Nature). A genus of about twenty species 

 of half-hardy or tender perennial herbs, mostly with creeping or diffuse 

 stems and entire leaves. The flowers are pale violet or whitish, funnel- 

 shaped, with five spreading lobes and slender tube. Stamens five, not 

 quite equal, projecting beyond the tube, and slightly united at the base. 

 The stigma is kidney-shaped, and hides the anthers. Fruit, a two-celled 

 capsule, which remains within the persistent calyx. The species are 

 natives of the warmer parts of America. 



They are all of recent introduction, Nierembergia 



gracilis, K filicaulis, and N. calyci7ia, the earliest species, 

 ha\ang been introduced from Buenos Ayres in 1831, 1832, and 1834 

 respectively. A period of thirty yeara elapsed before the introduction 

 of the other cultivated forms :— iV. rivularis from Argentina (1866), N. 

 Veitchii from South America (1866), and N.frutescens from Chili (1867). 

 PrincipalSpecieB NiEREMBERGiA CALYCINA (with large calyx). Stems 



procumbent, covered with glandular down. Leaves 



