FLEABANES 269 
They do not root deeply, and therefore require free watering during dry 
weather, and a mulching of the surface with well-rotted manure. The 
seeds should be sown in April, in a box ‘or pan in light soil, and given 
the protection of a frame. In a fortnight or three weeks after the 
seedlings have appeared they will be large enough to prick out in larger 
boxes or in a frame, to be planted out in beds or borders later on; or 
they may be at once transferred to the places in which they are to 
bloom, pricking them out at distances of about a foot apart. If intended 
: for blooming in pots, the first method should be adopted, and they 
should then be left until the flower-buds are swelling, then removed 
with a good ball of earth around the roots and potted. The dwarf 
kinds should be selected for potting and bedding, those of greater stature 
for the border. 
Description of Callistephus chinensis and cultivated varieties ; the 
Plate 138. uppermost figure being the natural form. The separate 
figures are—l, disk-floret ; 2, ray-floret. 
FLEABANES 
Natural Order Composirz. Genus Erigeron 
ERIGERON (Greek, eri, early, and geron, an old man, suggested by 
the hoary pappus of some species). A genus of about eighty species of 
perennial herbs with the characters of Aster, except that the ray-florets 
in Hrigeron are in several series, whilst in Aster they are in one. The 
fruits also are more slender in Erigeron than in Aster. The Species are 
distributed throughout the Temperate and cold regions of the world ; 
two of them being natives of Britain. Z. canadense is a naturalised 
weed in some parts of England. It is said that a single seed of this 
species came to Europe in a stuffed bird in the seventeenth century, and 
its progeny has spread widely over the Continent as well as in this 
country. ~ 
: ERIGERON AURANTIACUS (orange). Stem 1 foot high. 
_ Lower leaves oblong, stalked, not toothed ; upper ones 
lance-shaped, stalkless. Flower-heads solitary, bright orange, 2 inches 
across; August. Introduced from Turkestan (1879). 
: GRANDIFLORUS (large-flowered).. Stems 4 to 8 inches high. 
Radical leaves spoon-shaped; stem-leaves oblong or lance-shaped. 
Flower-heads large, purple or whitish, solitary; July and August. 
Introduced from Rocky Mountains (1819). 
I.—27 
