37 1 
MECHANICAL POWER IN TOTTING PLANTS. 
diately marked it as one of the finest plants 
of Northern China, and determined to send 
plants of it home in every ship until I should 
hear of its safe arrival. 
" All the gardens of the mandarins in the 
north of China are small, and as there is only 
room for a few plants, these are always of 
the most select and handsome description. 
Amongst my collections are several other 
plants which are common in these gardens, 
all of which are of great beauty and interest. 
Azaleas, Roses, Moutans, Glycine sinensis 
alba, Viburnums (more handsome than our 
common Gueldres rose), and various other 
free-flowering shrubs, make these gardens 
extremely gay, particularly during the spring 
and early summer months. 
" Weigela rosea is unknown in the southern 
provinces of China, and therefore I have every 
reason to suppose that it will prove hardy, or 
nearly so, in England ; but, if not, it will 
make a first-rate green-house plant, and will 
take its place by the side of the beautiful 
Azaleas and Camellias of its own country. I 
never met with it in a wild state on the 
Chinese hills, and it is therefore just possible 
that it may have been originally introduced 
to China from Japan : this, however, is only 
conjecture. In the north of China, where the 
plant is found, the thermometer sometimes 
sinks within a few degrees of zero, and the 
country is frequently covered with snow, and 
yet in these circumstances it sustains no in- 
jury. 
" As this shrub has been liberally distri- 
buted amongst the Fellows of the Horticultural 
Society, some remarks upon its habits and 
cultivation will probably be acceptable. It 
forms a neat middle-sized bush, not unlike a 
Philadelphus inhabit, deciduous in winter, and 
flowers in the months of April and May. One 
great recommendation to it is, that it is a plant 
of the easiest cultivation. Cuttings strike 
readily any time during the spring or summer 
months, with ordinary attention ; and the 
plant itself grows well in any common garden- 
soil. It should be grown in this country as it 
is in China, not tied up in that formal un- 
natural way in which we frequently see plants 
which are brought to our exhibitions, but a 
main stem or two chosen for leaders, which in 
their turn throw out branches from their sides, 
and then, when the plant comes into bloom, 
the branches, which are loaded with beautiful 
flowers, hang down in graceful and natural 
festoons. It was a plant of this kind which I 
have already noticed as growing in the grotto- 
garden on the island of Chusan ; and I doubt 
not that plants of equal beauty will soon be 
produced in our gardens in England. 
" The possessors of Weigela rosea had better 
give it some slight protection during the next 
winter, by keeping it either in a green-house 
or frame until duplicates are made, when these 
can be planted out in the open air. The main 
object should be to enable the plant to ripen 
its wood well, for when this is done it will not 
only be more hardy, but it will also flower 
better in the following season. 
" Its capability of standing out our English 
winters will be shown in the Garden of the 
Horticultural Society next winter ; but 
whether it prove itself a hardy or a green- 
house plant, it is without doubt one of the 
finest shrubs which have been introduced to 
this country of late years." 
Whether this Weigela proves to be a hardy 
plant, as anticipated, or not, it will certainly 
prove an acquisition in two points of view. 
If not hardy enough to endure our climate 
when planted out fully exposed, it will cer- 
tainly thrive against a conservative wall ; and, 
as a forcing shrub, there can be no doubt that 
it will soon be brought into very extensive 
cultivation. From its habit, it also appears 
likely to be suitable — which all plants are not 
— for being grown during the winter season 
for furnishing cut flowers. 
The genus Weigela, constituted by Thun- 
berg, belongs to the natural order Caprifolia- 
ceas, or the Honeysuckle tribe (the Caprifoils of 
Lindley in his Vegetable Kingdom), and is 
closely related to Diervilla, from which modern 
botanists have doubted its distinctness. Now, 
however, that good materials have been sub- 
mitted to examination, it is found to be suf- 
ficiently distinct for practical purposes. One 
point of difference, most obvious to casual ob- 
servers, though not the most important in a 
botanical point of view, is that in Diervilla 
the corolla is irregular, and gibbous on one 
side at the base, while in Weigela it is regular, 
and equal-sided at the base. Both have one 
celled ovaries " cut into four false cells by the 
projection of a pair of double placenta?, which 
do not unite in their axis," double capitate 
stigmas, and remarkable epigynous* glands : 
in Weigela this gland is free ; in Diervilla it 
adheres to the corolla. 
MR. SAUL S APPLICATION OF MECHANI- 
CAL POWER IN POTTING PLANTS. 
It has always been felt to be a matter 
of difficulty to remove large plants from the 
pots they have been growing in, when it is 
required to place them in others still larger. 
The weight of a bushel of soil, interwoven 
with roots, is such that in moving it in any 
way, considerable force must be applied ; and 
it is very difficult to apply this force without 
doing some injury to the young fibrous roots, 
* Epigynous, means growing upon the summit of the 
ovary, or incipient seed-vessel. 
