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MANAGEMENT OF A FEW SPECIES OF BIGNONIA 
AND TECOMA. 
The two genera specified in the above heading may, for all popular and practical 
objects, be classed together ; so that if, in the following remarks, we speak of the 
treatment of either, we may be supposed to refer to both. They contain several 
species, which are scarcely ever met with in collections, but which are so exceed- 
ingly handsome that their rarity would be astonishing were it not accounted for by 
the belief that they are incapable of being easily cultivated to advantage, or so as 
to produce their showy inflorescence in any moderate quantity. 
That such an opinion is altogether baseless, has been demonstrated to us by 
numerous examples. It evidently arises from ignorance of the nature or habits of 
these plants, and inattention to their peculiarities. If a Bignonia be treated as an 
ordinary climber, pruned, trimmed, and fastened closely to the trellis that supports 
it, the probability is that it will never bloom at all ; or, if it should blossom, the 
flowers will be so scanty as to render it unworthy of being grown, at least in such 
a manner. 
A great deal of the health and beauty of this tribe (as of all climbing plants) 
depends on the position of the pots or beds in which they are planted. It is 
commonly thought to be the height of folly to allow plants which flower tardily 
much room to extend their roots ; and accordingly, confinement to comparatively 
small pots is considered a sovereign remedy for extreme infertility. This method 
has, however, so repeatedly failed, when unaccompanied with other and more 
important conditions, that it is strange to find how tenaciously its value is yet held 
by many cultivators. 
Small pots can never, of themselves, promote productiveness, because they^only 
cramp the roots, and prevent them from imbibing much nourishment. And though 
a stunted plant is generally the most prolific, its fertility is not a consequence, but 
a concomitant of its stuntedness. Warm, dry summers are notoriously conducive 
to the subsequent production of both flowers and fruit ; but they unquestionably 
operate most beneficially on those plants whose roots are spread over the largest 
amount of surface, and not on such as have their roots circumscribed within very 
narrow limits. 
As the question of how fertility may be best brought about is of the utmost 
moment, it deserves canvassing a little more closely. It is not materially connected, 
except relatively, with the amount of food absorbed and appropriated. A plant 
may have numberless fibrous roots, (which are its media of supply,) and almost 
boundless resources of nutriment, if those roots lie within the influence of light 
and air, and sustenance does not exceed the means of elaborating it duly ; and 
yet remain in a state of the highest productiveness. Indeed, the wider the roots 
