206 
CULTURE OP IPOMCEA LEARTL 
Being such an exuberant-growing plant, and occasioning a dense shade, it is 
admirably fitted for training beneath the roof of an orchidaceous or propagation 
house. Unlike /. rubro-coerulea^ which is apt to die after the first year, it is a 
thoroughly shrubby species ; hence it may be planted in a bed or border for a 
permanent purpose, and as it loses its leaves in winter, and will then bear pruning 
back to any extent, it is still better adapted for shading a house, since no such aid 
is desirable through the winter. When thus pruned, it will begin growing again 
very early in the season, and in a few weeks cover the space it had before occupied, 
flowering in inconceivable profusion from May till the end of autumn. 
Where this plant is trained to the roof of a house as a shade, and where it is 
merely fastened beneath the rafters in the general way, it should always be 
supported by wires running parallel to the direction in which it grows, and not by 
tying or nailing it up according to the usual practice. Its twining habit renders it 
preferable that it should have something round which the branches can coil ; and 
stout wire or slender iron rods afford this desideratum. 
In such situations as those last referred to, it will continually be found that 
nearly all those short lateral shoots on which the flowers are borne, incline upwards 
towards the glass, against which tliey will soon press and become injured if not 
carefully watched. To allow them to take that position would also have the effect 
of permitting them to escape observation, for they could not thus be viewed from 
the interior of the house ; so that it is necessary to draw these shoots gently into a 
contrary direction while they are young and tender, and if the plant has had its 
branches trained closely enough together, the flowers will not again rise through 
them. Moreover, when the blossoms commence expanding, they require to be 
screened from the more powerful rays of the sun. Opening in the morning, they 
will change colour and fade long before midday if exposed to the solar rays j but 
where they are brought below the foliage, the latter is commonly sufiicient to 
protect them. We may add, while speaking of the usefulness of having a density 
of leaves, that another advantage attends close training ; inasmuch as, though 
when embracing single chains or wires hung in festoons about the different parts of 
the house, or along the sides of its walks, the appearaace is very elegant and 
attractive, a far more gorgeous display is created by a broad and continuous mass, 
such as would result from the entire investment of any large surface. 
It has been said in the commencement of this paper that our subject is much 
superior in England, in all its characters, to what it is in Ceylon ; and we may 
now glance at the chief cause of this superiority, convinced that whatever it may 
be, it is of the greatest moment that the culturist should be apprised of it, in order 
to repress effectually any disposition it may evince to relapse into its wonted infe- 
riority. We attribute its improvement mainly, then, to the more genial atmosphere 
and nutritive soil with which it has been favoured since it was received into Britain. 
The plants at Mr. Knight's, which are unsurpassed by any that we have met 
with, have been kept in a house of a rather high continuous temperature, and are 
