THE BLUE SAGE, 71 
off as cuttings, and will soon strike in a temperature of 70°, 
This practice may be varied by lifting and potting the 
y 
plants before the frost has defaced them, in which case 
they must be wintered in a warm greenhouse or the cool 
end of the stove, and have but moderate supplies of water 
until they begin to grow freely in the spring. At the 
time of potting, superfluous shoots may be removed and 
struck, but the autumn is an inconvenient season for pro- 
pagating this salvia. 
The crimson salvia (8. splendens) and the small 
S. cocedvea ave about equally well adapted for bedding 
as S. palens, but they are all so diffuse in habit that to 
employ them to advantage requires more than ordinary 
taste and judgement. S. coecinea answers admirably to 
grow from seed as an annual, as when so managed it does 
not grow much more than a foot high, and it blooms 
freely from July to October. 
For the greenhouse and conservatory the following 
species of salvia may be especially reeommended :—The 
narrow-leaved (8. auyustifolia), flowers blue, appearing 1p 
May ; the light blue (S. azure), flowering from August to 
October; the scarlet (S$. /ulgens), a fine plant, producing 
a grand show of scarlet flowers in August ; the white 
patens (S. pafens alba), a variety of the plant represented 
in the plate. It is useful as a greenhouse plant, but is 
scarcely effective as a bedder. 
A remarkably fine group of salvias were some time 
ago brought into notice by Mr. H. Cannell, of Swanley. 
We happily received grand spikes of bloom of three of 
these, and therefore can speak of them as flowering well 
in the autumn. Salria Pitcher’ produces a profusion of 
flowers of the most pure and brilliant blue, and will flower 
