GESNERAS 



447 



.seedlings are sufficieutly large to handle, they should be pricked out into 

 pans or pots of similar compost, kept in a warm moist and shaded 

 house, and as they grow into nice little plants, must be potted singly and 

 grown on under similar conditions. If this process is judiciously 

 managed, so that there is no check, the seedlings will flower the same 

 year. When the old tubers have been started in spring, some of the 

 shoots may be taken off and struck in a close warm frame. A third 

 method is carried out at the end of summer, when the leaves are fully 

 developed. Taken from the plant with the leaf-stalk intact, they are 

 laid face downward on the potting-table, and a number of clean cuts are 

 made across the midrib, about an inch apart. The leaf is then reversed, 

 pegged down upon cocoa-nut fibre refuse in a close warm frame, and 

 left until it decays. It will then be found that a small tuber was 

 formed at each of the cuts, and the substance of the leaf has been 

 withdrawn into them. Stored away dry, these will serve for starting 

 early in the new year, 



GESNERAS 



Natural Order Gesneracea;. Genus Gesnera 



Gesnera (named in honour of Conrad Gesner, the famous Zurich 

 naturalist, 1516-1565). A genus of about fifty species of stove per- 

 ennials, mostly tuberous-rooted herbs, with opposite leaves and tubular 

 flowers borne in opposite cymes. The corolla-limb is five-lobed, regular 

 or two-lipped. They are natives of Brazil, Peru, Guiana, Columbia, and 

 Mexico. 



Gesnera cardinalis (scarlet). The best and most 

 popular of the cultivated species. It has a large woody 

 tuber, from which spring several unbranched short stems about 9 inches 

 high, bearing oblong-cordate, rich green, hairy leaves, 6 to 9 inches 

 long, and erect terminal racemes of rich red tubular flowers ; May to 

 September. Brazil. Also known as G. macrantha and G. s'plendens. 



G. donkelaariaxa (Donkelaar's). Stem 1 to 2 feet. Leaves large, 

 somewhat heart-shaped, green tinged with purple aTid red. Flowers 

 vermilion, 2 inches long, in large, terminal heads: June. Xative of 

 Columbia. 



G. EXONiENSis (Exeter). Leaves dark, covered with velvet of red 

 hairs. Flowers deep orange-scarlet with yellow throat, in great masses : 

 winter. Garden hybrid. 



G. NiEGELioiDES (NsBgelia-like). Leaves heart-shaped, hairy on the 



