2GG 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
THE CULTURE OP STEPHAHOTIS FLORIBUNDA. 
S is a lady’s flower, par excellence, for nothing can 
■qual it for bouquets and dressing-up epergnes, and for 
ill other uses to which cut flowers can be applied. It, 
lowever, is not grown so extensively as it should be, 
imply because the great body of amateurs imagine 
that to grow and flower it well a very strong heat is required. It 
will not do any good in an ordinary greenhouse temperature, 
because there would uot be sufficient heat to enable the growth to 
be made early enough in the season to get well ripened before the 
autumn ; but it can be grown in a much lower temperature than is 
usually employed. 
Iu the first place, secure a healthy plant in a 48-size pot early 
in March, and shift at once, if the pot is full of roots, into two sizes 
larger, and place in a temperature of G0° or 65°. Train the young 
growth over the roof of the bouse. To get an abundance of flowers, 
the wood must be exposed to the light, and training the growth to 
the roof affords the readiest means of attaining the desired object. 
If specimens are not required for exhibition, train the growth to 
the roof permanently; otherwise, regulate the growth carefully to 
allow of its being taken down, and placed upon a trellis fixed iu the 
pot, just before coming into flower. Many Stephauotis growers 
are afraid of the little trouble incurred in transferring the growth 
from one trellis to the other, and grow them upon the pot trellis 
entirely. A very little thought will show that, when the growth is 
huddled together upon so contracted a space, it is impossible to 
receive sufficient light and air to thoroughly mature the young wood. 
When the specimens are not required to be moved about, it is best 
to train them on the roof altogether, as better growth is made, and 
the flowers show to greater advantage. When portable specimens 
are grown, put them on the trellis some time in March, and leave 
them there until the flowers are past, and then return them to the 
roof. 
It is difficult, if not impossible, to say when the next shift will 
be required, in a case like this, where everything depends upon the 
progress each individual specimen makes, for it is no use to repot 
them before they are well rooted. With ordinary treatment they, 
however, will be in proper condition for repotting early in June. Use 
pots two sizes larger, and be very particular in having them properly 
drained, as this shift will have to carry them through the whole of 
the next year; and no stove plant is more impatient of having 
stagnant moisture or sour soil about the roots than the one we are 
now dealing with. A compost, consisting of equal parts fibrous 
peat, turfy loam, and rotten cow-dung, is the best that can possibly 
be had, when mixed with a sixth piart of sharp silver-sand, or good 
drift-sand, washed clean. The peat and loam must be broken up 
roughly, and if it has been laid in a heap a few months previously to 
using, its value will be enhanced. 
A temperature of about 60° is advised as desirable to begin with ; 
