42 
APHELANDRA AUEANTIACA. 
APHELANDRA AURANTIACA AS AN ORNAMENTAL AND 
WINTER FLOWERING PLANT. 
By William Wood, Fishergate Nurseries, YorJc. 
This is, without exception, the most hrilhant-flowered hot-house shrub, of dwarf and 
compact habit, yet introduced, forming a neat, yet robust, dark-green, laurel-leaved plant, 
from two to twelve inches in height. In appearance it may very aptly be compared 
to the well-known Aucuha japonica, but with its ample mottled leaves exchanged for those 
of a remarkably large-leaved evergreen, of a rich healthy hue. 
There is a peculiarity of growth about it, which offers an interesting fact for elucidation 
to the physiologist, and of equal importance to the cultivator, as a key to the theory upon 
which its successful culture depends. The following remarks are offered in relation to the 
temperature, soil, and locality, which appear essential to its continued vigour of growth, 
and formation of bloom, being the result of practical observation and experiment upon the 
first plants introduced to this country, which were under the writer's charge, and from 
which the published figures were derived. The most obvious and striking feature in 
which it appears to differ from its allied species, and indeed from most other known plants, 
is the eventually pendent position its large, healthy, laurel-like leaves assume, as though 
in a state of collapse. From the experiments to which the plants alluded to were sub- 
jected, for the purpose of multiplying them, it was found that a high bottom (or root) 
temperature was essential for obtaining a vigorous growth, and more particularly if the 
plants had been exposed to an ordinary stove temperature for some time previously, and 
equally so under all conditions in attempting to re-accumulate its vigour by exciting its 
dormant axillary buds. As evidence of the slow circulation, and viscid nature of its 
elementary fluid or sap, after the plant has attained its mature growth, and expended its 
bloom under the temperature most suitable for its expansion, I have seldom or ever been 
able to excite both the opposite buds at any axil or leaf-joint sufficiently low for obtaining 
a vigorous after-growth, one of the two buds generally remaining dormant; and hence it 
was found essential, either for obtaining continued growth or for re-accumulating its vigour 
when pruned back to a convenient length, to have recourse to a strong atmospheric 
stimulus. Such appears to be its constitutional endurance of heat during its season of 
growth, and impatience under an ordinary stove temperature (except for the perfection of 
its bloom), that I consider it impossible to continue the vigour of the plant equal to the 
production of bloom, unless pruned back to a suitable length, to induce a vigorous terminal 
growth, and placed under the highest genial temperature ofivhich a tropical house admits. 
The most suitable position for obtaining the growth alluded to, would be either in a 
newly-made tan-pit, or upon a bed heated by the tank system (the latter preferable for 
its uniform temperature); and where neither of these can be had, the plant should 
be cut back, along with the generality of others requiring strong heat, at the period when 
a close genial temperature is about to be observed, in spring, for obtaining vigorous 
growth throughout the hot-house department. The plant should remain in the same pot 
in which it bloomed, until its new shoots are formed, after which it should be shifted, and 
its growth continued until the leaves appear to have attained a mature size, and then 
gradually placed upon a cool surface, preparatory to a warm position in the stove or 
hot-house. As autumn and winter is the most natural season for unfolding its bloom, 
plants may be pruned back until late in summer or early in autumn, providing the 
requisite stimulant of bottom or root-temperature is at command, that such plants or 
cuttings require. At an advanced period they should be exposed to a high temperature 
until the appearance of the flower-spike. Every crown, or shoot, detached from the parent 
plant during the summer and autumn months, if exposed to the conditions now described, 
will each produce a large terminal raceme of bloom. Under whatever aspect the growth 
is obtained, each plant should be placed under a free exposure to light previous to the 
flower-buds opening, under the influence of which they will gradually unfold their 
remarkably large imbricated racemes of flowers, eclipsing all others in their dazzling 
brightness. 
