108 
A CONFUTATION OF SOME POPULAR ERRORS RESPECTING 
THE CULTIVATION OF CLIANTHUS PUNICEUS, 
WITH A FEW DIRECTIONS FOR ITS GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 
Those of our readers who possess the second volume of this work, will find an 
elaborate description of the botanical character and general appearance of this beau- 
tiful plant at page 169, accompanied by a coloured plate. In an article from the 
Horticultural Society's Transactions there quoted, it is stated that this plant suc- 
ceeds best in a border of peat soil in the open air. Subsequent experience and in- 
vestigation have taught us that cultivators may greatly err by adopting unre- 
servedly the suggestions of persons, published so soon after the introduction of any 
plant, as, in the instance now under consideration, it has been sufficiently proved 
that the subject of this notice will neither succeed well in peat or heath soil, nor 
will it endure the open air in this country during the winter months, at least when 
the w^eather is very severe. 
Cuttings of the young wood will strike with the utmost facility, if planted in 
pure sand and covered by the sliding light of a small frame, or by a bell-glass in a 
propagating house, taking care to shade them from the heat of the sun, and also to 
guard them from damp by watering very cautiously. In three or four weeks the 
young plants wull have rooted, and may be transferred to separate pots, in a com- 
post of two-thirds sandy loam and one-third heath-mould, and kept in a gentle heat 
for a few days till they become established. If thisoperation is performed in the 
spring, the plants may then gradually be hardened, and ultimately planted out in 
an open border with a south aspect, but in this situation, if unceasing attention be 
not devoted to them, the cultivator will frequently find himself disappointed in all 
his expectations, through the depredations of the common shell snail ; for, like the 
laburnum and other members of the natural order Leguminoste, this plant is very 
liable to its attacks. 
This pest of the garden deposits its pellucid globular eggs in the soil, and 
numbers suddenly abound where none had been suspected ; they devour every leaf, 
and this plant, which for symmetrical beauty is almost without a rival, becomes an 
apparently lifeless and deformed object. On the contrary, should none of these 
enemies appear to prey upon it, the Clianthus will thrive w^ell in a prepared border 
of light loamy soil, made rich by pure leaf-mould or well-rotted manure ; and, in 
such compost, it will grow in the richest luxuriance, and attain the height of several 
feet. Yet notwithstanding this plant will grow so vigorously in the open air 
during the summer months, it can by no means endure a rigour equal or approxi- 
mating to that of the late winter ; and the most careful protection has been found 
insufficient to preserve it alive in the open ground. Still we have seen it stand 
through the two preceding winters in a sheltered situation in the open ground, 
