328 
PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
quite hardy, but would most conveniently be 
kept with such small herbaceous or alpine 
plants as require protection in winter. 
The generic character of Spiranthes is as 
follows : — Perianth ringent (flower gaping). 
Lip channelled, clawed, fringed. Stigma 
roundish, with a rostellum (beak), which is 
straight, bifid (two cleft), with an elongate 
lineai* appendage between its points. The 
general appearance of the plants and their 
blossoms will be understood from their station 
amongst orchidaceous plants. The three na- 
tives species are called S. autumnalis, S. cesti- 
ralis, and S. cernua. 
An Abstract of Reports, Papers, and 
Proceedings of the Horticultural 
Society of London, with Notes bt a 
Practical Gardener. 
The GuernseyLily. — Vast numbers of the 
Amaryllis sarniensis, or Guernsey Lily, are 
annually obtained direct from Guernsey, 
where they are largely cultivated, and sold in 
the seed shops; but, like Hyacinths, they are 
seldom bloomed the second season, or if 
flowered at all produce weak and unsatisfac- 
tory blossoms. There is no doubt they might 
be bloomed year after year, if proper atten- 
tion were paid to their growth; and we find 
this has been done by the late T. A. Knight, 
Esq., who was a most zealous cultivator and 
experimentalist in horticultural matters. In 
relating his experience on this subject, Mr. 
Knight writes :* — 
"I should think the matter of this communi- 
cation scarcely worth notice, if I were not per- 
fectly confident that the same mode of culture 
is applicable to bulb ms roots of every kind 
which do not flower freely (exclusive of those 
which grow in water), and with but little vari- 
ation to plants of every kind. Wishing, how- 
ever, at the present time to confine myself to 
very narrow limits, I shall simply relate the 
experiments which I have made upon the 
Guernsey Lily, with the conclusions which I 
have drawn from the result of those experi- 
ments; and my narrative will I think be most 
plain and intelligible, if I confine it to treat- 
ment through successive seasons, of a single 
root of that plant. 
" A bulb of the Guernsey Lily, which had 
flowered in the autumn of 1822, was placed 
in a stove as soon as its blossoms had withered, 
in a high temperature, and damp atmosphere. 
It was planted in very rich compost, and was 
amply supplied with water, which held manure 
in solution. Thus circumstanced, the bulb, 
which was placed in the front of a curvilinear 
roofed stove, emitted much luxuriant foliage, 
which continued in a perfectly healthy state 
till spring. Water was then given in smaller 
* Transactions of Horticultural Society. 
and gradually reduced quantities till the month 
of May, when the pot in which it grew was 
removed into the open air. In the beginning 
of August the plant flowered strongly, and 
produced several offsets. These, with the ex- 
ception of one, were removed ; and the plant, 
being treated precisely as in the preceding 
season, flowered again in August 1824. In 
the autumn of that year it was again transfer- 
red to the stove, and subjected to the same 
treatment, and in the latter end of the follow- 
ing summer, both bulbs flowered in the same 
pot with more than ordinary strength, the 
one flower- stem supporting eighteen, and the 
other nineteen, large blossoms. One of these 
flowered in the beginning of August, when its 
blossoms were exposed to the sun and air 
during the day, and protected by a covering 
of glass during the night, by which mode of 
treatment I hoped to obtain seeds; but the 
experiment was not successful. The blossoms 
of the other bulb appeared in the latter end of 
August, and were placed in the same situation 
in the stove which the bulb had occupied in 
the preceding winter; and I by these means 
obtained three apparently perfect seeds. 
In the foregoing experiments, I conceive 
myself to have succeeded in occasioning the 
same bulbs to afford blossoms in successive 
seasons; by having first caused the production 
of a large quantity of true sap, and subse- 
quently, by the gradual abstraction of moisture, 
having caused that sap to have become inspis- 
sated, and in consequence adapted to the pro- 
duction of blossom buds. Some gardeners 
entertain an opinion that bulbs may be excited 
to produce blossom buds by being kept very 
dry, after their leaves have withered: but I 
believe this opinion to be wholly unfounded; and 
that the blossoms are always generated whilst 
the living foliage remains attached to the bulb." 
The Cranberry. — The Cranberry grows in 
swamps, and the late Sir Joseph Banks cul- 
tivated them successfully in a fish pond. 
The following is a method of growing them 
without such aid, as practised by Robert 
Hallett, Esq., F.H.S. :— 
" In April, 1818,1 filled half-a-dozen shallow 
boxes, each about eighteen inches square, and 
four inches deep, with peat earth, and planted 
in them, at one inch apart, cuttings* of the 
cranberry, about an inch and a half in length, 
placing them in my melon bed, where they 
were frequently watered ; the cuttings rooted 
freely and threw out strong shoots, and 
in the June following they were fit to plant 
out. 
" Having collected from a dry hill, where 
wild heaths flourished in abundance, a suffi- 
* The cuttings may be taken from any part of the 
old plants, for the old wood will root equally as well 
as the young branches. 
