vn.] 



LIST OF FLOWERS. 



307 



soil, let it be fresh loam with a manuring of well-rotted horse or 

 cow-dimg. The scarlet-tiirhan is the most showy variety, and 

 produces a most brilliant elfect in a bed ; and, when thus planted, 

 it is well worth the while to take all the precautions necessary to 

 bring forward the plants Vvcll through the winter, and to guard 

 their blossoms against too much wet or sun in the spring. To 

 do this, cover in winter, and shade and water in the spring, as 

 you do in the hyacinth bed. When you plant in pots, take care 

 that the pots be good deep ones ; sach as are used commonly for 

 the auricula, drain them well with pot-sherds, but give frequent 

 waterings in dry weather, or, in such small masses, the earth soon 

 burns, and you lose your blossom-buds, if not the plant. About 

 the end of June your plants will be dying down, and then is the 

 time to take them up, cut oif the fibres of the roots and pull off 

 the leaf-stalks ; and put away the roots, well freed from dirt. 

 This root and the anemone take no harm from remaining twelve 

 months out of ground. 



555. ROCKET, or dame's violet. — Lat. Hesperis matronalis. 

 A biennial plant from Italy, which grows a foot and a half high, 

 sending up many stalks crowned by double fragrant flowers. 

 Varieties, red, purple, and white ; and blows from May to August. 

 Propagated by parting the roots in autumn ; or by cuttings of the 

 stalks of the flowers, which, being cut into convenient lengths, 

 you make three splits in the end of each, of about half an inch 

 up ; force the split end into the ground, and they will readily take 

 root if you put a hand-glass over them, and place them where 

 none but the morning sun can get to them. Better still to strike 

 them under a propagation-glass in a gentle hot-bed. There are 

 very few prettier^ and still fewer sweeter, flowers than the double 

 rocket ; but it is said by theorists not to thrive near large cities. 

 1 think that the smoke of London or Manchester is incompatible 

 with the health of anything animal or vegetable ; but 1 do not 

 think smoke prejudicial to this plant in particular, for I have seen 

 it remarkably fine in the neighbourhood of London, but never have 

 I seen it so fine as in the vicinity of the smoky towns of the north 

 of England, where it grows most freely in a stiff mould. 



556. RING FLOWER. — Lat. Anacyclus valentinus. An 

 annual plant from the south of France, about one foot high, and the 

 flower of a yellow colour, which appears in June and July. It is 



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