HINTS ON THE CULTURE OP GESNERA ZEBRINA. 
259 
supplies ; and are necessarily much stunted when the roots are but imperfectly 
furnished with fluid resources, or are otherwise disabled from performing their full 
functions. When it is noted that there is a large tuber to support, (with a multi- 
tude of smaller ones in G. zehrina^) exceedingly copious and succulent foliage, and 
particularly abundant inflorescence, it will be seen why, though the roots are not 
unusually numerous or strong, complete and unobstructed freedom should be 
requisite for tliem. 
The consequences of insufficient pot-room are apparent in the much greater 
debility of the plants. Their stems are not so stout, their foliage is small, broken, 
imperfectly formed, and lacking that charming green velvety aspect \vhich it 
assumes when quite healthy, and the flower-stems, while they appear earlier in the 
season, are feeble, and the blossoms of far shorter duration. 
But, if the pots used for this plant be deficient in breadth, it would not be prudent 
to employ much larger ones without they were, at the same time, less deep. 
Grossly as the roots feed, they must not be drawn far beneath the soil, or they will 
send up such a current of fluid as would create only more luxuriant stems and 
leaves, without improving (and most likely deteriorating) the flowers. The 
shallow pots advocated in a preceding page are, therefore, of the greatest moment 
for Gesneras. Pans from nine to ten inches broad, and a little more than five 
inches deep, contracted very slightly at the bottom, and frequentlj^ perforated 
there to secure good drainage, would be the fittest of all receptacles for the plant 
under consideration. 
Small or deep pots are not, however, the sole causes of its ordinary weakness. 
It suffers quite as seriously from the poor and innutritions soil in which it is 
sometimes potted. The whole of the circumstances which we have enumerated as 
proving larger pots essential, combine to show that a more nutritive earth is alike 
needful. We have mentioned its vigour and succulence, the energy and absorptive 
nature of its roots, and the heavy demands made on them by the luxuriance and 
expansiveness of the parts that are above the earth, and how are all these wants 
to be met but by additional nourishment in the soil ? 
As a compost which will be found to answer well in ordinary cases, we would 
prescribe a fine rich loam, in the proportion of five to eight, two portions of leaf- 
mould, or thoroughly reduced manure, and the remaining one of sand and heath- 
soil mixed. The above will be by no means too strong or too retentive where 
shallow pots are used ; and it may be modified in peculiar circumstances. For 
example, when it is thought worth while to grow a plant or two in a small pot for 
the sake of having it bloom earlier, the soil should be proportionably poorer ; for 
there would be a clear incongruity in nourishing a plant highly, and, simultaneously, 
preventing it from putting forth its increased powers. Besides, a poorer soil will 
aid in bringing it into flower sooner. 
A further reason why Gesneras do not reach the perfection of which they are 
capable, is to be traced in the retention around their roots of the soil in which 
