CAPE BULBS. 



235 



Of the Gastronema section the tale is short and sad. All of them 

 lived in my frame other winters, but all have died this year. 



Nerine. 



My experiments with a view to test the hardiness of the 

 genus Nerine have revealed some very interesting facts, although 

 at a lamentable loss on the stock generally. Some two hundred 

 and fifty plants in pots were experimented on, comprising most 

 of the known species and a great many of my own hybrids,, in 

 quantities of from six to twenty of each. The result has been 

 directly opposed to what I should have thought would have been 

 the case — that is to say, all the soft pale or bright green shiny- 

 leaved species, viz., N. flexuosa, N. undulata, N. angustifolia, 

 N. humilis, and all the hybrids in which either of them had 

 made one of the parents, passed the winter, frozen hard for 

 weeks together, in perfect health, while the larger-bulbed N. 

 curvifolia, and indeed all the others, although they survived 

 the first and longest run of severe weather, succumbed to the 

 second cold period. 



In bringing about this result, I find again that the question 

 of altitude in the native habitat gives us the key to the relative 

 hardiness of these bulbs in the same manner as with the 

 Cyrtanthi. Nerine flexuosa is from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, N. an- 

 gustifolia from a still greater height, and all the others mentioned 

 as passing the winter well, are upland plants. Of the hardiest 

 is my beautiful winter-flowering N. Manselli, which has broad 

 bright green leaves like an Agapanthus, and, when strong, a 

 3 foot scape of rose-pink or light crimson flowers. It was 

 obtained by intercrossing N. flexuosa and a fine form of N. curvi- 

 folia, and on both occasions of my raising it I only succeeded in 

 getting some four or five to grow. N. erubescens x flexuosa and 

 undulata, N. excellens x flexuosa and humilis major, and crosses 

 between N. flexuosa and N. pudica also came through the 

 winter well ; not one variety in which N. flexuosa was one of the 

 parents died. But it must be understood that I merely set 

 down the result of my experiments, and make the suggestions I 

 have made as to the fitness of some Cape bulbs for outdoor 

 culture rather as a basis on which others may work, and an 

 inducement for them to continue carefully experiments in the 

 open ground, than to advise the indiscriminate planting of these 



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