78 
NAT. ORDER. BICORNES. 
ripe, as it is a whole year growing to perfection. As the leaves of 
the Andrachne are larger than in the other sorts, they have always 
a better effect as evergreens. 
When there is plenty, both of fruit and flowers upon the trees, 
they certainly make a very gay and beautiful appearance, as most 
of the other plants are past their beauty at this time. The trees 
which have large oval fruit make the greatest figure ; the flowers 
of this being larger and oblong. The variety with double flowers 
is a curiosity, but their flowers having only two rows of petals make 
no very great appearance, neither do the trees produce any great 
quantity of fruit ; the other is therefore preferable. That with red 
flowers makes a pretty variety, especially when intermixed with 
the other, for the outsides of shrubberies, as they are of a scarlet 
bright red color at their first appearance, and afterwards change to 
purple before they fall off. The fruit in this is the same as the 
common sort. 
They delight in a generous but not too moist soil, as when planted 
in dry ground they seldom produce much fruit ; the flowers coming 
forth in autumn, when the winter proves severe they are generally 
destroyed, consequently, to obtain good fruit, they should be placed 
in warm situations, and where the ground is not naturally moist ; a 
good quantity of loam should be placed about their roots, and in dry 
springs they should be freely watered. 
