KEQUIEE COOL NIGHTS. 521 



the most luxuriant verdure of leaf up to this time, then sickened and 

 died, every leaf falling off. Euphorbia jacquiniflora lost aU its leaves, 

 but the Stephanotis was not materially injured. 



On the other hand, Mr. Spencer, another of our great gardeners, has 

 had to manage a house at Bowood, which, though generally called a 

 stove, and fiUed with stove plants, is never kept during the winter 

 months at a higher temperature than from 40° to 50° by fire heat. The 

 plants are principally used for decorating rooms, and for this purpose 

 late flowering plants are mostly cultivated. The roof is partially 

 covered with creeping stove plants, including Combretums, Bignonias, 

 Passifloras, Stephanotis, &c. The effect of this low temperature on 

 these and similar plants is to produce not only an entire cessation from 

 growth in winter, but in some cases they become partly deciduous, and 

 he found that they bore this low degree of heat not only without injury, 

 but when the warm days of spring returned they broke with unusual 

 strength and vigour, enjoying as they do, in fact, almost a natural 

 eUmate. It is generally thought Bignonia venusta will not bloom freely 

 except it grows in bottom-heat. That plant grows in a border inside 

 this house, without having any bottom-heat beyond what the house 

 affords, which, during the autumn and winter, is necessarily very low ; 

 and yet the plant is every season covered with bloom for two or three 

 months. Stephanotis blooms equally well in July, and the Combretums 

 and Passifloras nearly throughout the year. Eehites splendens blooms 

 equally well in the summer, and he finds the flowers of a much higher 

 colour than those from plants grown in a warmer house ; in the winter 

 Eehites becomes a deciduous tree. 



The same result was obtained at Drayton Manor, where, in a Yinery, 

 Pergularia odoratissima, Eehites splendens, Stephanotis floribunda, 

 Bignonia Chamberlaynise, Combretum purpxireum, and Clerodendron 

 volubUe were planted in the year 1847 against the back wall, and 

 where they grew in the greatest vigour. Mr. MUne's account of their 

 treatment is this : — " When the stove climbers were planted on the 

 back wall of the Vinery, it was with the understanding that they 

 should receive the same treatment as an early Yinery requires, and live 

 or die. At the same time what could be done was done for them, in 

 order to preserve them through the winter ; water was withheld from 

 them after September, in order to induce rest before the dead of the 

 year. No particular attention was paid to the thermometer in the house, 

 few fires were used in the winter, and the temperature of the house was 

 frequently as low, in the mornings of frosty nights, as 35°, and on 

 one occasion 32°, when the earth in watered pots in this house was 

 frozen ; no fire was made to thaw, but they took their chance. The 

 house was fully opened on all mild days, and partially so every day 

 during the winter. The temperature of the earth about their roots was 

 not always measured, but it is known to have been 68°, and in the absence 



