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TROP^OLUM EDULE. 
It is, when properly grown, a handsome plant ; and will form a fine intermediate 
species between T, tricolorum and hrachyceras^ coming into flower at nearly the 
same period. 
If the tubers are not duly covered with soil, or the pot in which they are grown 
be too small, or an insufficiency of water be supplied, the plant is very apt to die 
off in dry weather before having opened half its flowers. The remedy for this lies 
in the correction of those three evils. Still, an opposite extreme must be guarded 
against. In training it, besides using a flat trellis, the shoots should be arranged 
closely, or the poverty of the leaves will be too obvious, and the flowers will be too 
much scattered. To ensure denseness, it is better to avoid high trellises, and only 
to employ those which the palpable strength of the specimen renders it probable 
that it will thoroughly cover. 
Tropaion^ a trophy, furnishes the origin of the generic title, which is appHed 
because the leaves of the earlier species resemble a buckler, and the flowers an 
empty helmet. 
