AGAPANTHUS. 



5 



AGAVE. 



Indies, with whitish flowers tbat have 

 the odour of the tuberose. They 

 should be grown on moss, and sus- 

 pended from the rafters of a very 

 damp hothouse. They are very diffi- 

 cult to propagate. 



^Ischyna'nthus, Jack. ; Incarvi'llea, 

 Rox. — Cyrtandracece. — Stove para- 

 sitical shrubs, growing four or five feet 

 high. Natives of India, where they 

 are found in moist, shady woods, 

 hanging from tree to tree, and produ- 

 cing large bunches of their showy 

 orange scarlet flowers. In England 

 they should be grown in moss, or in 

 vegetable mould and sand, and they 

 should be allowed abundance of heat 

 and moisture. They are very difficult 

 to propagate. 



JE'sculus. — JEsculaceaz. — Most of 

 the horse chestnuts are too large trees 

 to be admitted into a work like the 

 present ; hut the red-flowered horse- 

 chestnut (JE. rubicunda) and its 

 varieties, are seldom above twelve or 

 fifteen feethigh, and theyare therefore 

 very suitable for a shrubbery. The 

 most beautiful variety is Whitley's 

 Scarlet. These trees should be grown 

 in a sheltered situation, or they will 

 not flower well. For the yellow- 

 flowered horse-chestnut, see Pavia. 



African Lily. — See Agapa'nthus. I 



African Marigold. — See Tage v tes. 



Agapa'nthus. — Hemerocallida- 

 cece. — The Blue African Lily, A. 

 umbelldtus, is a noble plant, with a 

 hulbous root, somewhat resembling 

 that of a leek ; and it retains its leaves 

 all the winter. There is a variety with 

 striped leaves. A. dlbidus has white 

 flowers, but it does not differ from 

 the common kind in any other respect. 

 The African lilies all require a loamy 

 soil, mixed with very rotten manure 

 from an old hot-bed, so as to make it 

 rich ; and they should he fully ex- 

 posed to the light. They should also 

 have plenty of water when they are 

 in a growing state ; and they should 



be shifted repeatedly into larger and 

 larger pots, each only a little larger 

 than the preceding one, taking off the 

 offsets every time, if any should be 

 found, till the flower-buds are formed. 

 The plants are always very large he- 

 fore they flower ; and when the flower- 

 buds form, they should be in a large 

 pot, so that the roots may have plenty 

 of room ; and they should be abun- 

 dantly supplied with water, taking 

 care, however, not to let any remain 

 in a stagnant state about the roots. 

 Thus treated, and kept in a green- 

 house, or living-room, or under a 

 veranda, this plant will frequently 

 send up a flower-stalk above three feet 

 high, crowned with twenty or thirty 

 heads of flowers, which will come into 

 blossom in succession. When in 

 flower, it may be placed in the open 

 air, and forms a noble ornament to an 

 architectural terrace, or a fine object 

 on a lawn. If the Agapanthus is 

 wanted to flower, when of a compara- 

 tively small size, it should not be so 

 often shifted ; and when it is, the pots 

 need not be so nearly of a size. Once 

 shifting in spring will, indeed, be 

 enough ; and if the roots are so large 

 as to require a pot of inconvenient 

 size (for the roots must have plenty of 

 room), the hulb may be divided, and 

 the strongest of the fibrous roots cut 

 off without injuring the plant, or pre- 

 venting it from flowering. 



Agaric. — Fungi, of the mushroom 

 kind, but generally poisonous. 



Agathosma. — See Diosma, from 

 which the plants composing the genus 

 Agathosma have heen separated. 



Agave\ — BromeliacecB. — Succu- 

 lent plants from South America, of 

 which one species, the American Aloe, 

 A. Americana, and a variegated- 

 leaved variety of it, are old inhabi- 

 tants of British gardens; having been 

 formerly kept in tubs in the orangery 

 or in some other house during win- 

 ter, and set out during summer. The 



