REMARKS ON RUSSELIA JUNCEA, 
229 
fitting it for bearing both stems and blossoms in the ensuing year. Night air 
must, by consequence, be prejudicial not useful. 
It may occasion surprise that we should have included the genus Stapelia in a 
paper on Epiphylla, since the latter are not seldom met with in cottage windows, 
or cultivated as greenhouse plants ; whereas Stapelias are almost universally ranged 
with the stove species. That these plants really require the temperature of a stove, 
we cannot bring ourselves to believe. And if we had to assign a reason for the 
numbers of them which yearly perish in our collections, we should attribute it 
unreservedly to the artificial position they occupy. It surely must have been 
forgotten that they are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and that the dry air of 
the greenhouse is precisely that which they need. Unless considerations like these 
are allowed to bear upon their culture, we decidedly think they will be for a time 
exterminated from our gardens, as they have already been in places that we could 
name. 
In another and final paper, we purpose embracing the management of those 
succulents which have not yet been specifically noticed. 
REMARKS ON RUSSELIA JUNCEA. 
A figure of a portion of this exquisite plant may be seen in vol. iv. p. 7$ of 
this Magazine. We refer the reader to it. and to the accompanying description. 
It is our object to correct error, and obviate misconstruction ; and though, 
with one exception, we perceive no reason to alter our opinion, or to retract 
anything stated with respect to the general treatment of the plant ; yet the 
experience of three succeeding years has not failed to instruct, and we can vouch 
for the correctness of the following remarks, which have been communicated by one 
of our earliest correspondents. 
It is said in page 80, that " It delights in good sandy loam, mixed with about 
one-third peat, and a little sand." This passage is sufficiently inconclusive : for 
what is a good sandy loam ? There is scarcely a gardener in England who will 
not tell you, " Mine is such :" and yet there are not any two gardeners in all the 
British empire who could produce as many specimens which, if chemically or 
even mechanically tested, would be found to correspond. Again, what is peat ? it 
is the sodden vegetable remains of rushy bogs — inert, antiseptic, vegetable matter, 
that can be brought to little worthy account in the garden ! Again, what is a little 
sand ? We will not, however, be hypercritical ; for, practical gardeners know 
pretty well how to apply such generalizations : it is the unhappy amateur who 
" perishes for want of knowledge," and who sees his " beauties" fade under his eye, 
one after the other, while attempting to conform to instructions which he cannot, 
in reality, appreciate. 
