THE GENUS KALOSANTHES. 
65 
quence, deliciously sweet-scented in the open air, though their fragrance is rather too 
strong for the confined atmosphere of the drawing-room. 
In their native country they doubtless occupy open and elevated situations, 
where, being exposed to an almost vertical sun, and intense light, they not only 
bloom profusely, but produce flowers of very brilliant colour. In this country, until 
within the last ten years, the Kalosanthes were treated as dry stove plants, and we 
recollect the time when they used to be potted into brick rubbish and very poor soil, 
and be kept very dry during the winter season, to prevent their rotting or damping- 
off just above the surface of the soil. In those days, plants were tortured into a 
miserable existence, and the wonder is now, that more did not pass out of cultivation, 
than the plant catalogues show to be lost to the country. Merely to have a plant, 
no matter whether it was enticed to live for years in a 4-inch pot, or got a shift 
annually on a certain day, was the sole ambition of the botanical collectors of those 
days, just as it is the pride of some of the antiquated cultivators of the present 
times. 
The whole of the plants belonging to this genus are readily propagated by 
cuttings, and indeed if the plants are in free growth, and in a tolerably moist atmo- 
sphere, it would not be difficult to take the cuttings off with roots to them, as they 
frequently, when growing freely, produce roots in abundance along the branches. 
However, supposing you cannot get your plants in this way, cuttings may be taken 
off any time between February and October, and will then strike freely. In length 
they should not exceed two or three inches, and must be prepared by removing the 
leaves from three or four of the lower joints, and then cutting close under the lower- 
most one in the usual way. If the wood is very succulent or tender, the prepared 
cuttings had better lay for a few days in a dry situation to evaporate some of their 
juices, but if the wood is tolerably hard, they may be inserted in the cutting pots at 
once, giving them an open porous soil, freely intermixed with coarse sand. Place 
the pots on a gentle bottom-heat, but it is not necessary that they should be kept 
either moist or very close. They will root and be fit to pot off in about a month or 
six weeks. After the end of April it is not necessary to strike the cuttings in pots, 
as from that time until the end of September, they, in favourable situations, strike 
freely in the open ground. At that season tolerably strong branches may be taken 
off, and being inserted in a shady situation in the open ground, or temporarily shaded 
for a short time, they make strong plants for potting in the autumn ; and if they are 
properly ripened, make good plants for bedding in the flower-garden in the following 
season. 
The soil in which the Kalosanthes most delight is one of free open texture, con- 
sisting of parts rich, turfy, sandy loam 
One do. do. do. do. peat 
One do. half-decomposed leaf-mould 
liberally intermixed with coarse sand and potsherds, and charcoal broken small, 
VOL. XV. NO. CLXXI. K 
