SHRUBBY A3"D SUB- SHRUBBY FLOWERS. 127 



on a hotbed, or layers. Be careful to water neither too 

 little nor too much : it is far better to give the required 

 moderate, but constant supply, at two or three doings 

 than at one. 



Pomegranate — Granatum, flore pleno. — The Double- 

 flowered Pomegranate will thrive out-doors, in England, 

 against a wall. It is a favourite plant to be thus trained, 

 as a sort of pilaster, on each side of the entrance-door of 

 a mansion. But the blooms thereon are few and rare, 

 partly perhaps from injudicious pruning : the flowers are 

 produced on the shoots of the year, and therefore care 

 should be taken to leave lateral spurs from which they 

 may start. But the truth is, that, even in France, the 

 Pomegranate is a tub-plant, requiring a considerable 

 length as well as heat of summer, which is attained by 

 forwarding it in an orangery in spring. So treated, and 

 brought out of doors, with us, about midsummer, it 

 becomes, in the course of years, a magnificent object, 

 adorning the close of summer with its bright- scarlet 

 fleshy flowers. The Pomegranate attains a great age; 

 perhaps equal to that of the Orange-tree and the Olive. 

 Its bark, then, is twisted like a corkscrew, and its aspect 

 venerable, at the same time that it annually blooms and 

 puts forth its small, shining, deciduous leaves. There 

 are yellow and white varieties (both far from common), 

 which may be grafted on the Single Pomegranate. Cut- 

 tings strike freely, in heat. P. nana is a dwarf species, 

 or variety, which comes to us from South America. An 

 intermediate variety, P. nana racemosa, double, flowers 

 more freely, and earlier. The Pomegranate does best in 

 a substantial loam, that is at the same time rich and 

 pervious to moisture, and is renewed at no long intervals. 

 During growth, it must have frequent and copious water- 

 ings. The bark of the roots, and the roots themselves, 

 are in repute as a medicine against intestinal worms. 



JPyrus Japmica — Japan Pear, — which bears scarlet 

 blossoms early in spring, is really a Quince, and is now 

 removed to the genus Cydonia ; but many real Pears de- 

 serve culture as flowering-shrubs and trees. Of some, the 



