ON DISBUDDING FLOWERING PLANTS. 
63 
measure take after it by bearing their flowers towards the extremity of the 
branches, may be equally benefited by the same operation ; and others, even the 
common kinds, whose flowers are axillary, might have the size of their blossoms 
very much increased, and the whole appearance of the plants altered for the better, by 
attention to them in the end of February, or the beginning of March, divesting tliem 
of some of those numberless shoots which they throw out so prodigally. We have 
tried the plan on F. glohosa^ with the most complete success ; and, besides making 
the wdiole plant and its inflorescence so much more luxuriant, it gives a control 
over its growtli, which is of the highest use ; for a regular and elegant specimen 
may thus be procured with certainty, whereas it would be quite the subject of 
chance if altogether untended in this manner. 
But there is a much more extensive class to which the process may be applied, 
including all those plants whose shoots are terminated by clusters of flowers ; 
whether they are naturally prolific in side branches, or have been rendered so by 
artificial stopping. And it is in this place we must mention, that the habit into 
which some excellent cultivators have passed of frequently pinching or cutting oiF 
the summits of a plant's shoots, to induce bushiness, has led them to disregard a 
little extravagance, which sometimes results from the practice. We allude to the 
exuberant quantity of shoots that is occasionally emitted ; the very number of 
which has a direct tendency to enfeeble the flowers ; for where there is an immense 
display of blossoms, these must necessarily be more or less small and imperfect. The 
preferable course, therefore, we conceive to be, the fostering only a moderate 
number of shoots, and so allowing the blossoms to be both suf&ciently abundant, 
and singularly fine. 
Referring, primarily, to plants which bloom in terminal bunches, we yet take 
in those whose blossoms are more scattered and solitary. As an illustration of the 
former class, we shall instance the genus Pimelea. By checking the growing 
branches of some of the species, they are impelled to put forth a considerable 
abundance of laterals ; and when they have once been brought into this peculiarly 
branching condition, the shoots become so numerous and dense, as materially to 
lessen both the flower-heads and the individual blossoms. P. spectabilis, the noblest 
of the species, will well illustrate this circumstance. When it is slightly pruned, 
in the summer, it forms so many young shoots, that unless a few of these be taken 
away, the clusters of flowers are very much diminished. But, if the buds which 
would have constituted laterals be judiciously thinned just as they are about to 
burst, there will be a far more attractive display of splendid bunches of bloom, and 
the specimen will have altogether a much neater aspect. 
The same remarks relate quite as fitly to Pimelea sylvestris, hypericina^ and 
others of similar habitude. Even P. decimata, beautiful as it is when so thoroughly 
covered with its pink inflorescence, would, we think, be far handsomer if it had 
fewer and larger heads of bloom. And this might be easily brought about by 
destroying a portion of the young shoots as soon as they issue from the bud. 
