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ON THE CULTIVATION OF SALPIGLOSSIS AND ITS VARIETIES. 



BY DAVID CAMERON, A.L.S. 



The different species and varieties of Salpiglossis may be considered as well 

 worthy of cultivation, being highly ornamental for decorating the stage of the 

 greenhouse, or during summer while the greenhouse plants are out of doors, or 

 for transplanting into the open borders in May or June, in which situation they 

 will continue to produce an abundance of flowers until late in the autumn. They 

 may also be sown as annuals in the borders in April, and in favourable situations 

 will frequently flower well. 



Salpiglossis and its varieties were in much repute a few years ago, but their 

 day appears to have gone by without any just cause. 



When plants of this genus are intended for flowering in the greenhouse, they 

 should be sown early in spring in a hotbed, and removed into the greenhouse 

 when about eight inches or a foot high ; but to have them in perfection, they should 

 be sown in the August of the previous year, and when for transplanting should 

 be placed five or six around the sides of a store-pot in a mixture of loam and 

 well-rotted dung, with plenty of drainers in the bottom of the pot, and kept in 

 the most cool and airy part of the greenhouse during the winter, and as near the 

 glass as possible. In March they should be transplanted singly into small pots, 

 and in the same compost as previously described, and still be kept near the glass. 

 As they advance in growth and fill the pots with roots, they must be shifted into 

 pots of a larger size, which must be continued as the plants grow ; but over potting 

 must be avoided at any shifting, until they are finally placed in twenty-fours, which 

 will be sufficiently large for their remaining in to flower. 



In watering these plants, care should be taken not to wet the leaves at any 

 time, and more particularly during the winter, as they are at all times liable to 

 damp off if wetted when grown in a greenhouse. They are liable to be attacked 

 by the green aphis (the only insect that annoys them), which may be removed by 

 the directions given at page 73 of this volume. 



When grown in the greenhouse, or out of doors, a kind of damp often 

 destroys the young as well as the older branches for about the length of half an 

 inch in various parts of the plants, leaving the shoots perfectly sound both above 

 and below the injured spot. Where this occurs, it is necessary to cut off the 

 branch below the injury into the sound stem, for these spots, if left, invariably 

 spread in all directions until the whole plant is destroyed, and the same happens 

 if cut off at the diseased spot without cutting into the sound wood. 



When intended for transplanting into the open borders, they should be also 

 raised from seed in autumn, and treated as if for the greenhouse until the latter 

 end of May or the beginning of June, which is the time for turning them out. 



