ADAPTATION AND TREATMENT OF COMBRETUM PURPUREUM. 
11 
The foregoing remarks involve the following principles : — 
1st, Any mode of treatment which causes the formation of bloom in plants, under a 
lower mean temperature than that which nature has formed them to endure, is unfavourable 
to the constitutional vigour and maturity of growth, which is equal to the highest results 
of culture. 
2nd, Any course of treatment which gives to plants a preponderating tendency to fertility, 
(from whatever cause) over their productive organs of growth, is subversive of that vitality 
which is essential to prolonged vigour ; the vitality of plants being affected in proportion 
as their collective energy is being expended in the production of bloom. 
3rd, The mean amount of fertility and prolonged vigour in plants, is the result of a 
reciprocal action of the agencies favourable to growth and bloom, (separately considered), 
at the period assigned by nature for their respective functions. 
4th, The higher the results of an accumulated growth in plants, towards an ultimate 
effect in bloom, the higher are the agencies of air, light, heat, &c., required to produce them. 
The following instance shows a practical application of the theory propounded in the 
foregoing remarks. Amongst a miscellaneous collection of hothouse plants, the potting and 
superintendence of which was under the writer’s charge, in July, 1847, was a strong plant, 
tolerably well branched, of Combretum purpureum, in a half dormant state, within a pot 
of eleven inches in width. It was freely divested of its exhausted soil, preserving with 
care the straggling main roots, and small amount of young fibres, and thus re-potted with 
the sole intention of re-accumulating an amount of vigour equal, if possible, to the mean 
strength of its stems, by placing it within a pot of fourteen inches diameter, having about 
two inches of progressively coarse bottom drainage, over which was placed a distinct and 
heavy strata or layer of knobby portions of dried peat, well pressed, and using nearly equal 
parts of friable, sandy, turfy loam, and well-decayed turfy heath-mould. 
The plant was then placed upon the surface of a newly made vinery tan-pit for a few 
weeks, until symptoms of vigorous growth appeared, when it was half-plunged in the same 
position, and, as it progressed, it was three-quarters plunged, with an inverted dish placed 
beneath the pot. The temperature of the house was, in a great degree, maintained to suit 
the plants within it, varying from 65° to 80° by day, and 50° to 60° by night. The most 
material points of management were, with regard to ventilation, as early an admission of 
air as the external atmosphere would permit, thereby admitting of an early removal, and 
closing with a high, moist, genial temperature. With this treatment, the growth became 
remarkably vigorous, respectively from twelve to eighteen inches in length, while, as it attained 
maturity, the pot was gradually re-lifted to the surface, and the plant remained in the same 
house throughout the autumn and following winter, under a temperature of 50° to 60°, 
which appeared just sufficient to enable it to retain its foliage until the summer of 
1848 ; when the matured growth of the previous summer and autumn, on being exposed to 
a genial stove-heat, expanded from its elongated axillary leaf-buds, fine large splendid 
racemes of bloom, one of which was nearly two feet long, and eighteen inches wide ; and, 
after remaining an object of extreme beauty for some time, it formed in July one of the 
large premium-collection of plants at the great Horticultural Exhibition in York.* 
The interest and merits of this species is too generally well known, to need any further 
eulogium upon its attractive features, and as it so seldom appears amongst the competition 
groups at the great metropolitan fetes, for the reasons previously given, the evidence now 
offered proves that where size and vigour of growth is present, aided by a temperature equal 
to what its natural habit demands, it may, by suitable management, appear as one of the 
most beautiful and gorgeous objects yet introduced. One motive alone remains to test its 
capabilities. Were special premiums offered for the finest productions, it would ere long be 
placed in the very highest rank of splendid flowering exotic shrubs. 
* The plant was trained upon a flat fan-shaped wooden trellis, about two and a half feet in height. 
