144 



THE BULB HOUSE. 



tliree hundred in flower together, when scarcely any other plant was in 

 bloom. As soon as they show for bloom, they should be potted, and the 

 sooner the better, as they draw up weak, and do not flower so well, if 

 allowed to remain too long after showing bloom. As soon as potted, 

 they must be placed in the hot house, [bulb house] giving them but little 

 water at first, but as the pots get filled with roots, they will require a 

 greater supply. The sorts that succeed best by turning out are A. regiius, 

 crocata, accuminafa, rictilu, fulyiday psittacinaj and rittataj and all the 

 hybrids that have been produced from them. A. mdica, calyptratOy 

 Solandrceflora, and reticuhta, do not like turning out so well, as it is their 

 nature to continue gi'owing all the year through, and the hybrid pro- 

 ductions from those partake of the nature of their parents. They only 

 require to be kept dry a considerable time in their pots, to make them 

 flower, except any get sickly, or the mould gets soddened at their roots ; 

 they should then be laid by to dn- for a considerable time, or they 

 will be apt to rot." 



In regard to soil, Sweet remarks that, A. reticulata and striatifolia, 

 succeed best in Ught, turfy loam, rather more than one third of white 

 sand, and the rest tm-fy peat ; the use of the tuify soil is to keep it from 

 binding or getting hard in the pots, wliich it vrill do if sifted fine : 

 the fibres in the turfy soil also keep it open, that the roots may pass 

 readily through it." 



A. formossissima requires a rich soil, and may be advantageously 

 cultivated if placed out in spring, and taken up and dried when the lohage 

 is ripe. This species is perfectly hardy, and has flowered annually in a 

 vrarm border in the Claremont gardens in spring, and occasionally 

 again in autumn. In the greenhouse it requires a low temperature, and 

 also a season of perfect rest. This is a very common species, but it 

 does not, to our knowledge, ever produce seeds in this country, not- 

 withstanding the foUeu is both abundant and perfect, a circumstance 

 also noticed by Mr. Herbert, who concludes that its semenation depends 

 upon some very nice adaptation of temperature and moistnre. 



In an extensive genus like Amaryllis — we speak of it here as originaUj 

 constituted, without reference to its latter sub-divisions — there must of 

 necessity be some difference in the cultivation, in consequence of the 

 several latitudes, altitudes, and situations in which they are found. 

 A. caluptratum has been found to fioiuish in a light soil, placed on the 

 hot house flue, and kept growing all the year, but when transfen'ed from 

 that situation into the gi'een house, it languished and died. Psittacinum, 

 and the hybrids between it and viftatum, are liai'dy greenhouse plants, 



