242 
BARRINGTONIA SPECIOSA. 
TV 
plant of easy growth, likes plenty of moist heat, abundance of water in the grow- 
ing season, and a little bottom heat. Knowing that the species, in its native state, 
attains a great height, I endeavoured to get age without much height. The plant 
we have now bloomed was not more than four feet high, when it showed flower. 
It has since m.ade new shoots of more than 
four feet long. When our first plant 
was about eight feet high, I cut a foot off 
the top in March, and struck it. I found 
it root freely, and it was ready to pot in 
five weeks. This young plant was well- 
grown, and about the third year the top 
again taken off, and treated exactly the 
same as the other. The plant we have 
now bloomed was four years old last March. 
It w^as topped a year ago last March, and 
kept without a drop of water from Novem- 
ber till the middle of March. It was then 
started into growth. About the beginning 
of May it had made shoots a foot or more 
in length, when I turned it out of the pot, 
shook nearly ail the soil away, and cut 
back the roots, I then potted it into a 
twelve-inch pot, in a mixture of charcoal, 
loam, sand, and peat, and on the 4th of the 
following month (June) it threw up a fine 
spike of flowers. It is highly fragrant, 
something like Cereus grandiflorus^ but 
more powerful." The remains of the flower- 
spike sent tons measured twenty-two inches 
in length. 
Such is the process by which this splendid plant was induced to bloom. It is 
rich in instruction. 
The genus was named Butonka by Rumphius. This title has since been 
abandoned for one which commemorates the Hon. Daines Barrington, The wood- 
cut has been prepared from Miss Greenly's drawings. 
