OPERATIONS FOR APRIL. 71 
ZIchya trIcolor. A plant bearing the name of Kennedia pannosa recently 
bloomed with Messrs. Young, of Epsom, and likewise at the Clapton nursery. 
Having carefully compared it with specimens of the species designated Zichya 
tricolor, we cannot but consider them identical ; the trifling disparity manifested 
having palpably been occasioned by a diversity of management. It is a strong- 
growing species when favoured with congenial treatment, having downy stems 
and leaves, the leaflets of which last are roundish, and, together with the points 
of the stems, covered with a blackish-brown pubescence at the time of their first 
development. Red, yellow, and purple, are the three colours of the flowers which 
have suggested its specific title. 
OPERATIONS FOR APRIL. 
Never, perhaps, was there a more signally beneficial change in the weather, 
or one more thoroughly in accordance with every cultivator's desires, than that 
marking the close of February, and prolonged considerably into March. The 
natural heat of the sun being so admirably tempered with cold winds and frosts, 
while the surface of the earth was dried and pulverized, vegetation was prevented 
from advancing in the progress towards certain destruction which had so unhappily 
begun. 
We thus hurriedly glance at the past, with a view of enforcing the lesson, 
which few display much aptitude in learning, derivable from this extraordinary 
interposition of Nature. Plants are, much more than animals, the subjects of 
extraneous circumstances. Their developments take place precisely at the time 
when atmospheric elements are congenial, whether this occur in February or May. 
Hence, where the former is the case, — as it has been, indeed, in the present season, 
to a limited extent, — extreme detriment would in all probability ensue, were not 
man to exercise some counteractive force. 
Art is, proverbially, but the handmaid of Nature. The procedure of the 
power last named may be erratic, unseasonable, and apparently injurious ; and it 
is for the cultivator to inspect, control, and guide its influences as far as possible 
to the fulfilment of his desiderated objects. Thus, in the earlier months of the 
year, it devolves upon the gardener to throw open, on every appropriate occasion, 
all the receptacles in which plants have in any way been confined through the 
winter, that their growth may not be resumed till a fitting period, and may then 
have every appliance which can render it of a strong and vigorous description. 
Not only plant-houses, but frames, and those other kinds of temporary 
detached coverings placed over specimens in the open borders, should be subjected 
to the preceding precept. Straw, mats, and litter of all sorts, ought to be 
removed daily when the atmosphere is at all genial, and only replaced during very 
