By Jean Baptiste Van Mons, M. D. 155 



spontaneously growing are distinguished from those that 

 are sown, by the absence of cotyledons. 



The slips of the Lobelia Fulgens flower in the first year, but 

 if they are neglected, and suffered to grow into tufts, they are 

 two years before they flower. The plants raised from seed 

 bear flowers in the second year. The seed should be sown, 

 as soon as it is ripe, in earthen pans ; the earth should be 

 moistened, and after it has imbibed the water, the seed must 

 be spread over it without being covered. The pans should 

 be sheltered from the frost, and the young plants may be 

 transplanted in April and May. Very few of them remain 

 more than the second year, without flowering. A little 

 seed is ripened here, at Brussels, when the season is hot, and 

 especially from those plants which flower earliest* The mo- 

 ment that vegetation stops in the flowering stem, it should 

 be cut off, and suffered to dry. The seed is so like dust, that 

 it might be mistaken for it, and be thrown away. Mr. Witz- 

 thum, assistant in our botanic garden, has particularly 

 attended to the cultivation of this plant. The Lobelia Car- 

 dinalis, which perishes so frequently in sandy soils, becomes 

 strong, and multiplies without any care, in a clay ground; 

 but it flowers in all its magnificence only in the former 

 soil, and is, in this respect, conformable to the habits of the 

 double varieties of Hesperis Matronalis. 



* I obtained a few perfect capsules last summer, by fecundating the stigma, 

 and talcing off all the suckers as they sprang up.— Seer. 



