400 On the Culture of the Guernsey Lily. 



before the return of spring, its leaves are necessarily grown 

 old, and nearly out of office, even when they have been 

 safely protected from frost through the winter. It is, 

 therefore, not extraordinary, that a bulb of this species, 

 which has once expended itself in affording flowers, should 

 but very slowly recover the power of blossoming again. 

 The operation also of a cold climate, in retarding its 

 period of vegetation, must have led the plant into late 

 habits, like those of the Vines, described by Mr. Ark- 

 wright, in our Transactions ;* and, consequently, instead 

 of being naturalized, and adapted to our climate as plants 

 become, which propagate by seeds, it is, probably, now less 

 capable of producing a regular annual succession of blossoms, 

 than a similar variety of the same species of plant, immedi- 

 ately imported from Japan, would be. 



Considering, therefore, the deficiency of light and heat, 

 owing to the late period of its vegetation, as the chief 

 cause, why this plant so often fails to produce flowers, 

 I inferred that nothing more would be required to make 

 it blossom, as freely, at least, as it does in Guernsey, than 

 such a slight degree of artificial heat, applied early in the 

 summer, as would prove sufficient to make the bulbs vegetate 

 a few w r eeks earlier than usual in the autumn. 



Early in the summer of 1816, a bulb, which had blos- 

 somed in the preceding autumn, was subjected to such 

 a degree of artificial heat, as occasioned it to vegetate 

 six weeks, or more, earlier than it would otherwise have 

 done. It did not, of course, produce any flowers; 

 but in the following season, it blossomed early, and 



* Page 95 of this volume. 



