278 
for the tall kinds and root-division for 
S. reg 'mce^ S. parvifolia^ and their forms. 
This division should follow flowering 
and requires care in disentangling the 
brittle roots, and gentle bottom-heat 
and careful watering until the plants are 
again established . Even with every care 
it is often two or three years before the 
plants flower again with any freedom, 
after a disturbance of this kind. Seeds 
should be sown singly in small pots after 
soaking for forty-eight hours in warm 
water; placed in moist bottom-heat ua — ^ 
der glass they germinate in three orfour 
weeks but at flrst grow rather slowly. 
This monograph by M. van iSen , 
Heede of Lille, is translated (with some' 
additions) from the journal of the Na- 
tional Horticultural Society of France. 
S. Augusta. — A plant of noble aspect when 
well grown, reaching a height of fully 20 feet 
and rivalling the Banana in the amplitude of 
its leaves, 2 to 4 feet long and half as wide, 
upon stout stems of 4 to 6 feet. These are 
freely put forth all the way up by a tree-like 
trunk, the flower-spikes making their appear- 
ance in the lower leaf-axils and measuring 2 
to 3 feet in length upon a very short stem. 
The flowers are at first folded within a large 
canoe-shaped spathe a foot or more long, of 
deep purple colour, and often containing a 
sweet transparent liquid whidi %K^ftirom the 
flowers. These are similS^in ^Optiire to 
others of the genus, but are largepimd wholly 
white. The plant requires a warnrer tempera 
ture than S. reghic?. It was found by Thun 
appearance it is so like aS". Augusta that for 
many years it passed as a form of it, differing 
only in the shape of the leaves, which are 
somewhat blunt at the base in this kind where- 
as they are heart-shaped in Augusta. It flow- 
ered in Europe for the first time in 1858 in 
the Botanic Gardens of St. Petersburg and its 
handsome flowers of blue and creamy-white 
proved it to be quite a distinct kind. In this 
they are largest of all, and suggestive in their 
Strei.itzia Nkolai 
quaintly beautiful outline of somehuge tropical 
berg near the Pisang River, '-South Africa, b^j^erfly in the act of alighting. Beside being 
and first flowered at Ghent in 1854 
S. Nkolai — A plant with luxuriant leaves 
spread fan-wise and a palm-like stem of fine 
form in large houses, where it has been known 
to reach a height of nearly 30 feet, proving 
the most vigorous of the family. It is scarce 
in this country but commoner upon the con- 
tinent, where it is so robust as to be used for 
summer gardening in favoured places. In 
larger they differ somewhat in shape from the 
flowers of S. Augusta., and are produced in 
succession over a long period. The green and 
purple spatheis also very large (12 to 18 inches) 
and fills with a gummy fluid as the flowers 
expand. The noble leaves are nearly 6 feet 
long and over 2 feet wide, forming a leafy 
crown of great beauty. The name NicolaiyN2& 
given in honour of Prince Nicholas of Russia. 
