POPULAR GARDEN PLANTS. 



407 



Selfs. — Black Bess, Charles J. Perry, Ebony, Eliza, 

 Engineer, Heroine, Lord of Lome, Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. 

 Potts, Negro, Pizarro, Primrose Day, Rev. Charles 

 Kingsley, Sapphire, Sir Lancelot, Sir William Hewitt, 

 Sunshine, Vulcan. 



Alpines. 



Gold centres. — Amelia Hardwidge, Ben Simonite, Comet, 

 Defiance, Diadem, Emperor Frederick, Evelyn, Florrie 

 Henwood, Fred Copeland, Hebe, Hotspur, John Ball, Love 

 Bird, Minstrel, Miss Blackburn, Miss Mollie, Miss Moon, 

 Mrs. Ball, Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Thomson, 

 Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Wheelwright, Mungo M 'George, Nellie 

 Hibberd, Olympia, Pallas, Perfection, Roland, Sunrise, 

 Unique, William Coomber. 



White and cream centres. — Ada Hardwidge, Countess, 

 Dorothy, Edith, Lady Henry Grosvenor, Lady Howard 

 de Walden, Mary Francis, Mrs. Harry Turner, Romulus, 

 William Brockbank. 



Azalea indica. — The greenhouse or Indian 

 Azalea has a history analogous to that of the 

 Chrysanthemum in regard to its introduction, 

 cultivation, and improvement in Europe. In 

 the Botanical Magazine, t. 1480 (1812), it is 

 figured and described as "a very rare plant, 

 which has been long anxiously sought for by 

 cultivators of curious and scarce exotics. We 

 believe there are not above three or four indi- 

 viduals of it in the country, and of these only 

 the one in the collection of James Yire, Esq., 

 from which our drawing was taken, has as yet 

 produced any flowers." In the same place it is 

 stated that Kaempfer enumerated twenty-one 

 varieties cultivated in Japan, including white, 

 red, yellow, purple, and scarlet, with spots of 

 the most contrary hues. Fortune says of this 

 species : " Every mountain and hill in the cen- 

 tral and southern provinces of China is covered 

 with these beautiful plants. They are like our 

 own Heaths, and quite as abundant. By far the 

 finest are cultivated in gardens, indeed it was 

 only in gardens that I could find any worthy 

 of introduction into England." The Dutch cul- 

 tivated A. indica in 1680, but soon lost it, and 

 it was not reintroduced until the beginning of 

 the present century. Knight, of King's Eoad, 

 Chelsea, purchased in 1833 five varieties, one 

 double-flowered, two reds, and two large-flowered, 

 from a sailor who had brought them from China. 

 Low & Co. advertised twenty-one named varie- 

 ties in 1841. Since then the French, the 

 Belgians, and others have crossed and bred 

 these Azaleas with really wonderful results. 



A. amwna, A. obtusa, A. calyciflora, well-known 

 garden plants, are merely geographical varieties 

 of A. indica. They are all hardy in the south 

 of England. Two other hardy forms have lately 

 been distributed by Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, 



namely, Daimio and Mikado. In some parts 

 of England the old white A. ledifolia is hardy. 



Propagation. — Azaleas can be raised from seeds 

 sown as soon as ripe in well-drained pans of 

 finely-sifted peat and sand, placing them in a 

 brisk heat and shade. As soon as the seedlings 



di 



Fig. 512.— Azalea indica, single. 



are large enough to handle prick them out in 

 6-inch pots of sandy peat soil, keeping them in 

 these nursery-pots until they get several leaves 

 each, after which pot off singly in 3-inch pots, 

 in sandy peat, and place them in a warm, 

 moderately moist atmosphere, where they will 

 have sufficient light to keep them stout and 

 robust. When they have grown 4 or 5 inches 

 high, nip out the points. The generally adopted 

 method of propagation, however, is that of 

 grafting, using as a stock the common white, or 

 the variety called Sir C. Napier. All that is 

 necessary is to have the shoots of the stock and 

 the grafts in a similarly half-ripened condition ; 

 remove the leaves at the point where they are 

 to be joined, and splice-graft them. Place them 

 in a shaded propagating -frame or under bell- 

 glasses in a temperature of about 65°, and in 

 a few weeks they will unite, when the ligatures 

 must be taken off, keeping the plants growing, 

 and stopping them early to cause them to break. 

 The operation may be performed any time dur- 

 ing the spring and summer, so that the grafts 

 will have time to take before the short days 



