87 
ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON BRUGMANSIA SUAVEOLENS, 
Having already noticed the cultivation of this handsome plant in Vol. Ill, 
page 105, we shall confine our remarks, on the present occasion, to a few brief 
notices most obligingly communicated last September, by C. L. Spong, Esq. 
of Lewisham, in whose conservatory a magnificent plant was in bloom when 
the following striking particulars were taken. The plant is growing in a bor- 
der composed of rich loam and peat, in equal portions, mixed with about one- 
fourth or one-fifth of leaf mould ; in the centre of this border, which occupies the 
middle space of an octagon- formed conservatory, it was planted by the proprietor 
himself about ten or eleven years ago, and is now of the following dimensions : — ■ 
Length of the stem from the surface of the soil to the commencement of the 
branches^ four feet six inches ; extreme height of the whole plant, fifteen feet ; 
circumference of the stem at six inches from the ground, one foot seven inches ; 
circumference of the head, forty feet. The number of flowers exhibited on its fine 
spreading head, at the time the above particulars reached us, were no less than 
1300, a third part of which were fully expanded. Situated as this plant is, in the 
centre of the conservatory, with spreading branches amply clothed with green 
foliage, and these contrasted with the great number and exquisite whiteness of its 
large pendulous bell-shaped blossoms, together with their delicious fragrance, must 
have presented an effect at once magnificent and delightful. We were much more 
surprised to hear of this prodigious number of flowers being produced on a plant 
growing in a rich border, than we should if its roots had been confined to the limits 
of a large pot or tub ; for it is most generally seen that soft-wooded plants, like B. 
suaveolens, when planted in a border of rich soil, do not produce such a great 
number of blossoms as when growing in a pot. The reason of this, on the one hand, 
must be an excessive luxuriance of growth spent in the formation of wood without 
a proportionate formation of flower-buds, caused by the rootlets having an unlimited 
space to run in after nutriment, and the constant yet moderate degree of moisture 
in the soil ; on the other, the growth is slower, and consequently every bud, whether 
intended to form a shoot or a flower, is enabled to share equally in the quantity of 
sap sent up by the roots, which would be no more than the wants of the plants 
actually and immediately required. 
In whatever situation the B. suaveolens is grown it must have a great supply 
of water in the summer months, and particularly when the flower buds are forming, 
and, as it is a very free grower and likewise a free flowerer, we think it is best suited 
to a place in the conservatory border, particularly if the conservatory is large and 
spacious. If a plant, previously grown in a pot, be turned out into a good south 
border, and its branches tied back to the wall, about the beginning or middle of 
May, it will produce a considerable number of blossoms, but in the winter, unless 
Judiciously protected, it will suffer greatly, if it be not entirely killed, by the frost. 
