ON ROOM PLANTS. 



773 



Flowering Plants. 



Under this somewhat comprehensive heading, it is purposed 

 to describe some of the most popular room plants. It is not 

 of course the place to deal with details of cultivation here, as 

 most of the subjects belong to one or other of the sections 

 into which the work is divided. All that will be attempted 

 will be the enumeration of certain plants which, over a series 

 of years, have proved their worth for the purpose in hand — 

 Cactuses, flowering shrubs, select annuals, striking perennials. 

 In passing along, any of them which require treatment some- 

 what different from that ordinarily necessary for keeping them 

 in good health and condition will be noticed. 



Cactuses occupy a very prominent position in the list of floral 

 subjects that may be grown in windows indoors ; while they are 

 no less re- 

 markable for 

 their fantastic 

 shapes and 

 spiny stems. 

 There is 

 nothing diffi- 

 cult about the 

 culture of a 

 very large num- 

 ber, though 

 popularly there 

 is supposed to 

 be. The writer 

 has grown 

 these plants in 

 windows for 

 years, and 

 never fails to 

 flower them as 

 the seasons 

 come round. 

 In the case 

 of Phyllocactus 

 he has had 

 as many as 

 twenty - five 

 blossoms upon 

 a single plant, 



which through- ^ig. 514. — Garden Variety of Phyllocactus. . 

 out the winter 



had no more shelter than an ordinary window in a living 

 room afforded. Fig. 514 illustrates a free-flowering Phyllocactus^ 



