of spokes, or roots, over the old ones each year, and as they grow Culture of 
the old set of roots, which has done its work, decays away. Eremuri 
The nucleus has, after one or two years, a tendency, especially 
in E. Himalaicus, to split itself into two crowns, each of 
which when strong enough, sends up a flower stem and be- 
comes a separate plant, and each of these puts forth its 
own system of roots which tangle and intertwine with each 
other. These crowns subdivide again year by year and 
form a dense mass of detached but interlaced plants which 
are too weak to produce flower stems. On digging up and 
investigating one of these clumps which for four years had 
produced no blooms, I found that it consisted of no less than 
fifteen distinct crowns, each with its own set of roots, and it 
was a labour of patience and some difficulty to disentangle these 
one from the other with as little injury as possible to the brittle 
roots. My practice now is to take up in August or September 
every plant that has during the previous spring produced two 
flower spikes, separate them, and replant. Although it is not 
possible, even with great care, to avoid breaking the roots to 
some extent in the process of lifting, I do not find that the 
plants die or suffer appreciably: sometimes a year elapses before 
they flower again, but I think that is more probably due to 
their not having reached flowering size. 
I do not -protect them from the cold of winter and have 
not observed that they have suffered in consequence. The 
period of risk comes with spring, for they start into growth very 
early in the year, often in February. A most fat and interesting 
head pushes itself up through the ground and thickens and 
strengthens from day to day: it almost seems to grow as one 
watches it. The broad and handsome but tender leaves speedily 
14! 
