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NOTICES ON THE CULTURE OF NEW AND RARE PLANTS 
IN THE PRINCIPAL NURSERIES AND PRIVATE GARDENS IN THE 
VICINITY OF LONDON. 
On the Culture of the genus Stapelia. 
As many persons find great difficulty in managing- this curious tribe of plants, 
and as we have seen them cultivated to very great perfection in the gardens of a 
private gentleman in the neighbourhood of London, the following hints on his 
mode of treatment may not be unacceptable to our readers. 
The various species belonging to this genus are exceedingly liable to damp off, 
therefore the principal thing to be attended to, is to keep them perfectly dry 
during the winter months ; and, as any artificial heat at this season will only prove 
injurious, it is best to keep them in a cold dry frame, taking care to preserve them 
from frost. The plants, whether old or young, should be removed from this 
situation about the middle of the month of March, and placed as near as possible to 
the glass, in a damp stove, where strong heat is kept up, watering them moderately 
and cautiously when necessary. Under this treatment their growth will be very 
rapid, and great care must be taken not to let them have too much water at 
the roots. 
As soon as their growth is completed, which will be about the beginning of 
June, remove them to the back shelf of a pit, or the front stage of a greenhouse, 
where they will be sheltered from rain, and exposed to the full blaze of the summer 
sun. Here most of them will produce their flowers in July, August, or September. 
As autumn advances, let water, which was given moderately before, be entirely 
withheld, and the plants remain without any moisture till they are removed into 
the stove in the following March. During the winter season they should be 
exposed to the air freely ; and if the temperature is allowed to get below 40 degrees, 
they will not sustain any injury thereby. 
Plants thus treated will assume a dark purple hue, and perhaps shrivel a little, 
but will not be at all injured, and do not even lose a flower bud which may have 
formed late in the autumn. If any are very late before they flower, as is the case 
with S. grandiflora, spectahilis, and some others, they may be removed to a dry 
stove to bloom, and afterwards wintered with the others in a cooler place. 
The various species of this genus may be propagated pretty readily by cuttings, 
which should be taken off from the young shoots as soon as they are well formed ; 
these, like most other plants of a succulent habit, will require to be placed for a 
little time on a shelf in a dry stove, in order to dry up the excessive moisture they 
contain, as, if this is not done, they will be very liable to damp off; after the 
cuttings have become so dry as to begin to shrivel, they should be planted in large 
shallow pots, about an inch and a half apart, in a very sandy soil : or perhaps it 
would be better to plant them singly in very small (60 sized) pots ; this done, 
