PERENNIAL PLANTS. 



207 PERENNIAL PLANTS. 



produces light purple flowers in June 

 and July. P. speciosus grows two 

 feet high, and produces its beautiful 

 blue flowers in August and Septem- 

 ber. P. Murrayanus (the hand- 

 somest of the genus) grows about two 

 feet high, and produces its brilliant 

 scarlet flowers in August, but is rather 

 tender. P. Cobcea grows about a foot 

 and a half or two feet high, and pro- 

 duces its large light purple or pinkish 

 flowers in August, and is also rather 

 tender. P. Scouleri, which grows 

 three feet to four feet high, and pro- 

 duces its purple flowers from May to 

 July, is suffrutescent, and succeeds 

 either in the open border or forms a 

 beautiful object against a conservative 

 wall. On the whole, all the species 

 are beautiful, and none of them are of 

 difficult culture. 



Perado. — The name for a kind of 

 holly, a native of Madeira, Ilex Pe- 

 rado ; which is only half-hardy in 

 England. It makes, however, a beau- 

 tiful tree, which will stand without 

 protection in the open air, if it is 

 grafted standard high, on a tree of 

 the common holly. 



Perennial Plants are those per- 

 manent plants which are not woody, 

 but which generally die down to the 

 ground every year and spring up again 

 the year following. There are some, 

 however, which are called evergreen 

 perennials which never die down to 

 the ground, such as Pinks, Carnations, 

 several kinds of Saxifrage, &c. Peren- 

 nials have the great advantage over 

 annuals and biennials, that they do 

 not require renewal from seed, but 

 are propagated by division of the root 

 or division of the plant. Bulbous 

 plants are perennials, and they are 

 propagated by separating the offsets, 

 which may be considered as a kind of 

 division of the root. Tuberous-rooted 

 plants are propagated by separating 

 the tubers ; and when these tubers are 

 furnished with eyes like the potato, 



they may be cut into pieces, preserv- 

 ing an eye to each ; but when they are 

 without eyes or buds excepting at their 

 upper extremity, as in the case of the 

 Dahlia and the Garden Ranunculus, 

 each tuber must be separated from 

 the parent plant entire with its bud. 

 The great majority of plants which 

 ornament the miscellaneous borders of 

 a flower-garden are herbaceous peren- 

 nials, including under this term bulbs 

 and tubers. All the hardy bulbs in 

 a flower-border, except those of the 

 Hyacinth and the Tulip, should be 

 kept as dry as possible during winter, 

 as tbey are more liable to be injured 

 by wet than cold ; and when they are 

 taken up to remove their offsets, &c, 

 it should be in autumn when the 

 leaves have withered, and they should 

 be planted again as soon as practi- 

 cable, as they are very apt to be injured 

 by damp, &c, if they remain long out 

 of the ground. Tubers, on the con- 

 trary, such as those of the garden 

 ranunculus and the dahlia, must be 

 taken up every year as soon as they 

 have done flowering, and only re- 

 planted just before the growing season 

 commences, as, if left in the ground, 

 they are very apt to rot ; the bulbs 

 of the hyacinth and the tulip thrive 

 best when treated in the same man- 

 ner. The fibrous-rooted perennials 

 should be taken up and divided when 

 they are growing too large ; and even 

 when division on this account is not 

 necessary, most of the kinds are bene- 

 fited by taking up and replanting in 

 fresh situations occasionally, on the 

 principle of the rotation of crops. 

 This is, that all plants throw out 

 excrementitious matter, which is poi- 

 sonous to themselves though whole- 

 some for other plants ; and thus, in 

 the course of a few years, the ground 

 in which plants grow becomes unfit 

 for them. Nature has provided a 

 remedy for this by elongating the 

 roots of all perennial plants, whether 



