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ON THE CULTIVATION OF PLEROMA ELEGANS. 
congenial to their healthiness and well-doing, under circumstances and conditions that, of 
necessity, will in a greater or less degree, surround their artificial cultivation in a variable 
climate like that of Britain. 
As our remarks have mainly for their object the dissipation of the mistaken notion, 
which is very generally prevalent, respecting the subject of our present notice being a 
“ shy blooming plant,” even with the most special treatment that can be adopted, we shall 
best elucidate the discussion and make it more intelligible for practical ends by adverting, 
at the outset of our remarks, to the “ conditions of cultivation ” under which it is usually 
to be met with, and in so doing we shall endeavour to confine the observations we have to 
make to the extent of our own experience, which, during the current season especially, has 
not been on a limited scale. 
From what has been noticed, then, Pleroma elegans is generally found growing in the 
stove, occasionally in the warm greenhouse, or structure intermediate in temperature with 
the greenhouse and stove, but rarely in the common greenhouse or cold pit; and in one 
instance only have we witnessed it fully exposed to atmospheric influence throughout the 
summer months : grown in the stove and subjected to the humid warmth accorded to the 
majority of Melastomads, Gesnerworts, exotic Ferns, &c, we find this naturally shrubby, 
hard-wooded plant, little better than some semi-frutescent species of the order Melastomacece, 
exuberantly caulescent and foliaceous in the most tender, debilitated form; the shoots 
superfluous in quantity, weak and sickly in condition, the leaves pale green and com- 
paratively flaccid, and not the remotest appearance of inflorescence ; the entire aspect of 
the plant, in short, having undergone by hothouse culture, a complete transformation from 
the sturdy habitude it should exhibit, to the debilitated appearance represented above. 
Nor is its character much improved from the above in the intermediate house, etiolation of 
growth being considerable, the habit straggling, and disposition to flower exceedingly 
circumscribed ; a remarkable illustration of which has repeatedly come under our observa- 
tion during the present year. A large specimen in one of the principal metropolitan 
nurseries, having been kept in a warm greenhouse all last winter and throughout the 
succeeding spring months until May, being subjected to the temperature requisite for the 
culture of Achimenes, Gloxinia, &c., partly shaded by climbers over-head, made a most 
exuberant growth, or rather growths, inasmuch as the energies of the plant had been in an 
increasing state of activity and excitement by root moisture, in addition to atmospheric 
humidity and warmth throughout the winter, and in spring the rampant shoots had been 
so frequently “ stopped back,” to obviate redundancy of growth and to preserve the 
specimen compact and bushy, that in May last, when we first saw the specimen, it was a 
dense, close grown, squat bush, composed of a mass of slender, rather long jointed shoots, 
tolerably firm, though very far from being sturdy, and the foliage of a dark green, but 
inferior in size, and not a flowerbud visible. 
About this time the specimen in question, now a remarkably fine one, as far as 
dimensions, completeness of growth, and a superabundance of shoots would render it so, 
was transferred to a common greenhouse, with the view of maturing the growth by 
additional exposure to solar and atmospheric influences in order to induce it to blossom ; 
but this object was not accomplished ; it would not, nor has it yet borne a single flower, 
for being in such a highly excited condition by stopping the shoots, and what not, when 
removed from the vegetating influences of the warmer house, it had thus acquired a 
habitude of “ growing ” not easily to be divested of, and from the appearance of the plant 
a short time since, I strongly suspect it will not flower this season. 
From the non-flowering condition of the particular specimen alluded to, a few useful 
lessons to guide the practical culturist in its management may be deduced, and attention 
may be directed to them with the more confidence, because their practical utility and value 
has already been attested in an instance we will presently refer to more particularly. 
Firstly. Pleroma elegans should be treated as a cold greenhouse plant. 
Secondly. A comparatively dormant state should be secured in the dead season by an 
exceedingly limited supply of moisture to the root, which conjoined with the low temper- 
ature of an airy greenhouse will ensure this desirable condition of rest, but at the same 
