BANKSIA. 113 



The soil best adapted for their culture is very rich turfy 

 loam two parts, one part peat, and a little river sand ; 

 and during the summer months, supply them liberally with 

 water. 



B. arundinacea. — This is the common Bamboo of the 

 tropics. It forms a very stout stem, which rises like a 

 beautiful column to some fifty or sixty feet in heir^ht, the 

 laterals which spring from the nodes producing quite a 

 profusion of its light and bright green leaves, the whole 

 plant presenting the appearance of a beautiful plume of 

 feathers. It may be grown in pots, when it forms a very 

 ornamental object, and it may be used during summer 

 for the sub-topical garden, also for the decoration of 

 apartments, halls, or corridors with splendid effect. It is 

 a native of the tropics. 



Banksia. 



This is an Australian genus of the natural order 

 Proteacece, an order which contains many ugly gouty- 

 looking plants, as well as some of the greatest beauty, 

 and to the latter class the present family belongs. 

 Bariksias were formerly favourite plants, and most de- 

 servedly so, for they afford a contrast which is produced 

 by no other plants, and it is difficult to understand why 

 they have been allowed to pass so suddenly out of cul- 

 tivation. However, as so many of the species are now 

 flowering and producing seeds so near home as the 

 Azores, it is to be hoped, now that sub-tropical garden- 

 ing is so rapidly extending, that efforts will be made to 

 place these fine plants upon as good a footing as they 

 formerly occupied, for they would make splendid ob- 

 jects used in that way in the open air during summer, 

 I 



