134 MANAGEMENT OF THE GENUS JESCHYNANTHUS. 



a striking illustration of the fact, that the ability of plants to 

 resist sunlight is in proportion to the power they possess of 

 secreting moisture ; and hence it is inferred that, as one of the 

 principal causes of abortive growth and paucity of bloom is 

 solely attributable to a partial exclusion from light by the ordi- 

 nary modes of cultivation, thereby excluding the principal agent 

 for inducing fertility — the importance of a full exposure to its 

 influence cannot be too strongly urged, " the amount of assimila- 

 tion in plants being determined by the degree of light to which 

 they are exposed." * 



Now admitting the correctness of these remarks, the following 

 inference may be drawn, that those organs of plants upon whose 

 maturity the formation of bloom depends, should, under artificial 

 growth, be so arranged as to admit of their receiving the direct 

 rays of light upon them. Those species whose bloom is formed 

 at the extremities of the branches, as JE. grandiflorus, pulcher, 

 Lobbianus, and ramosissimus (maculatus), should be trained as 

 near to an upright position as possible, whilst those whose 

 flowers are formed laterally from the axils, as JE. Boschianus, 

 miniatus, Horsfieldii, &c, should be so disposed as to admit an 

 equally diffused light to their lateral or side-growths by a sym- 

 metrical arrangement of their shoots — the inward growths being 

 trained in an upright and oblique line, and the outward retained 

 at equal distances by small upright stakes or hooks over the mar- 

 gins of the pots. 



The second mode of cultivating JEschynanthus in pots is by 

 treating the species as semi-epiphytes, by planting them in 

 sphagnum and decayed vegetable matter (as rotten branches, 

 leaves, &c.) intermixed with broken sandstone, charcoal or pot- 

 sherds, in the proportions of two-thirds of the first-mentioned 

 materials and equal parts of the latter. By this system the 

 largest plants may be obtained in the shortest time, as the nature 

 of the material admits of the quickest circulation of moisture, 

 and enables the plants to assimilate a great amount of nutritive 

 matter in a short period. The ultimate success in obtaining 

 bloom equal to the extent of growth so obtained will greatly 

 depend upon a course of treatment applicable to the conditions 

 by which they have been grown. The power of plants to store 

 up food should in this and similar cases be regulated according 

 to the means whereby they are enabled to ripen their growth 

 for the formation of bloom ; for it has already been shown that 

 the peculiarly gross and succulent habit of the species is such as 

 to enable them to appropriate fluid matter to a degree greatly 

 disproportioned to their ripening powers, unless exposed to the 



* Lindley's Principles of Botany. 



