ON THE CULTURE OF NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 
93 
place them near the glass in a moist stove, and water them with great caution. 
Under this treatment they will soon strike root, when they should be potted into 
larger sized pots ; the soil best suited for them is a light sandy loam, mixed with 
a little brick rubbish, which will require sifting ; and it is indispensably necessary 
that they should be well drained, as, if they are once allowed to become saturated 
with water, they will die immediately. 
Besides the above method of propagating by cuttings, many species of this 
genus naturally throw up a great many offsets or suckers ; which, if taken off 
carefully, and potted immediately in small pots in the soil before mentioned, 
will grow very freely. Although the genus Stapelia has been subjected to many 
divisions, and although many of the original species of this genus have been 
referred to other genera, and in some instances have been made to constitute new 
genera, yet we have no doubt that the system above laid down will apply equally 
well to most of the species which originally constituted this genus, and which are 
now to be found under the genera Tridentea, Tromotriche, Piaranthiis, &c. 
We would just add that, although the cultivators of this curious and beautiful 
genus frequently find some difficulty in getting some of the species to flower, yet, 
under the above-named mode of treatment, the plants in the collection of the 
gentleman from whom we gathered the above remarks, produced their flowers last 
autumn in as great, or perhaps greater, perfection than we have ever before seen ; 
and we have no doubt that if this system be more generally practised, it will lead 
to the same satisfactory results. 
Mimosa prostrata. — This is a new and very pretty species of this extensive 
genus, and as far as we are aware has never yet been noticed in any of the 
periodicals. Its habit is naturally to throw its long slender branches along the 
ground ; but if it be trained up the rafters of a greenhouse (for which 
purpose it is admirably adapted) it forms a most delightful and pleasing orna- 
ment. It is a remarkably free-growing plant, and, t if trained as above, it will 
produce a great abundance of lateral shoots ; these, if left to themselves, will 
naturally incline downwards, and when in flower its beautiful clusters of delicale 
pink blossoms, which, as they are produced on the lateral shoots, and as these are 
very slender, wave backwards and forwards from the wind produced by airing the 
house, have a most elegant and fascinating appearance. But our object in the 
present instance is to show, that in the nursery of Mr. Young, Epsom, where we 
believe this plant first appeared, it has usually been treated as a greenhouse 
climbing plant, and by most persons who possess it, it has generally been so 
considered ; but Mr. Young, from a very laudable motive of endeavouring to 
prove whether it would endure the open air in this country, placed a plant 
of it last year against an open wall, in a sheltered situation, and he has found 
that it has succeeded admirably well ; for during the very severe weather of 
the past winter, which has in many instances destroyed plants which have been 
considered perfectly hardy, this plant has withstood all the inclemency of the 
weather, and not had even so much as a leaf injured : from this we may reasonably 
infer that this beautiful plant is perfectly hardy, and it will undoubtedly prove a 
most delightful feature in any collection of hardy ornamental climbing plants. 
