EPI MEDIUM PINNATUM. 
377 
hyacinth always repays us with a bloom, and 
the principal difference between the very best 
and the worst is only a difference in the size ; 
but it is requisite for success that we first go 
to a respectable seed-shop or nursery for the 
bulbs ; next that we inform the principal 
whether we design to grow them in pots, in 
water, or in the ground, and what is the 
locality ; and if we grow them in water, that 
we should, thirdly, change the water once a 
week, and use soft water ; for this purpose 
always use dark glasses, for we are quite sure 
that for the sake of having the water look 
clear in the brighter kinds of glass, pump- 
water, without regard to its quality, has been 
applied to hyacinths, greatly to their detri- 
ment, sometimes to their destruction. 
EPIMEDIUM PINNATUM. 
Epimedium pinnatum, Fischer (pinnate- 
leaved Epimedium) — Berberidaceae § Nan- 
dineas. 
The Epimediums form a small family of 
Alpine plants, interesting partly on account 
of the neat manner of their growth, but chiefly 
attractive to cultivators in consequence of 
their being hardy, and thus within the means 
of every possessor of a garden. Some of the 
kinds are decidedly ornamental, as is the case 
with the subject of the present remarks, a 
species with brilliant yellow flowers originally 
named E. pinnatum, by Fischer, a Russian 
botanist, and apparently the same as a plant 
which has been grown for a year or two in 
gardens under the name of E. colchicum. In 
the published figures of the two, we can detect 
no material difference. This Epimedium col- 
chicum was noticed in the Annals of Horti- 
culture (1848). 
The E. pinnatum is a most lovely little 
hardy perennial plant, growing with a short 
rhizome, partly concealed under ground, bear- 
ing a few leaves, the bases of which are in- 
vested with large scale-like bodies analogous 
to stipules. The flower-scapes also arise from 
these rhizomes, and grow somewhat in ad- 
vance of the leaves ; that is to say, at the time 
the flowers are developed, the leaves are but 
half expanded. Both leaves and their stalks 
as well as the flower-scapes are, when young, 
clothed rather thickly with spreading hairs, 
but in the adult state the leaves become 
glabrous, except on the veins of the lower 
surface. The leaves are compound, some- 
times ternate, that is, composed of three leaf- 
lets, but more generally having five leaflets, 
the two pairs of which are remote from each 
other ; when fully grown these leaves are 
about a span long. The divisions of the 
leaves (leaflets) are ovate-cordate, or between 
