GLADIOLUS — GLOXINIA 375 
This last planting will afford fine late flowers. The plants should be 
supported by inconspicuous stakes. 
The successive plantings may be in the same bed among those set 
earlier, or they may be grouped in unoccupied nooks, or portions of 
the border. The plants may stand as clos? as 6 inches from each 
other. The earlier planting may be a foot apart to admit of later 
settings between. 
Late in the fall, after frosts and before freezing, the corms are to 
be dug, cleaned, and dried in the sun and air for a few hours and then 
stored away in boxes about 24 inches deep in a cool, dark, and dry 
place. The tops should be left on, at least till completely shriveled. 
The varieties are perpetuated and multiplied by the little corms 
that appear about the base of the large new corm which is formed each 
year. These small corms may be taken oif in the spring and sown 
thickly in drills. Many of them will make flowering plants by the 
second season. They are treated like the large corms, in the fall. 
Gladioli are easily grown from seed also, but this method cannot be 
depended on to perpetuate desirable varieties, which can be repro- 
duced only by the cormels. Some of the best flowers may be cross- 
pollinated, or allowed to form seed in the usual manner ; the seed 
sown thickly in drills, and shaded till the plantlets appear, then care- 
fully cultivated, will afford a crop of small corms in the fall. These 
may be stored for the winter, like the other young corms, and, like them, 
many will flower the second season, affording a great variety and quite 
likely some new and striking kinds. Those that do not flower should 
be reserved for further trial. They often prove finer than those first 
to flower. 
Early-flowering varieties of gladioli may be forced for late winter or 
spring bloom. 
For bouquets, cut the spike when the lower flowers open ; keep in 
fresh water, cut off the end of the stem frequently, and the other 
flowers will expand. : 
Gloxinia. — Choice greenhouse tuberous-rooted, spring and summer- 
blooming perennials, sometimes seen in window-gardens, but really 
not adapted to them, although some skillful house-gardeners grow them 
successfully. 
