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THE AMARYLLIS. 
Societies to look to merit instead of mon- 
strosity, foi it is inconceiveably degrading to 
the profession of a gardener to force him to 
adopt the mountebank system of growing 
plants so that they cannot support themselves, 
and resorting to the most ridiculous con- 
trivances which lower the productions at shows. 
The Fuchsias grown upon the plan we have 
here laid down, require no artificial support; 
they are firm, compact, handsome, and worthy 
of a far higher reward than the unmeaning, 
though somewhat substantial, prizes, which 
carry no weight, are evidence of no merit, and 
only tend to pervert taste. 
Amaryllis (or Sprekelia) formossisxima. 
THE AMARYLLIS, 
ITS VARIETIES AND CULTURE. 
There is certainly no flower among all 
the favourites in cultivation that is so noble 
in appearance as this beautiful tribe, and few 
which afford so much diversity of form and 
colour. Thev are all bulbous-rooted, but 
there are hardy, half-hardy, and tender 
species, each beautiful in their way, and all 
amply repaying us for the trouble attendant 
upon their cultivation. There is the variety, 
or species, called A. formosissima, as common 
in the shops as Hyacinths and Narcissus, and 
sold almost as plentifully, known by its 
splendid crimson flowers, dwarf habit, and 
capacity for forcing ; but handsome as this 
species is considered, and much as it is ad- 
mired, it is almost the least showy and least 
valuable of the whole tribe. We hardly know 
whether to class these flowers according to 
their form, their size, their habit, or their mode 
of cultivation. As to their species and 
varieties, they have been so crossed and 
variegated as to almost defy us in that parti- 
cular, for even Paxton and Lindley, in their 
Dictionary, wherein it is professed to give lists, 
enumerate sixty hybrids to between twenty 
and thirty imported kinds, and it is impos- 
sible to say how many even of those imported 
were distinct species. Upon the whole, there- 
fore, it will perhaps be better that we divide 
them according to the treatment they require, 
beginning with the hardy, and from those 
proceeding to half-hardy, to green-house, and 
to stove varieties. There may be a little 
difference of opinion as to what are hardy, and 
what require protection, but we shall take the 
authority already alluded to, and begin with 
those considered hardy. 
Amaryllis aullca, blooming a green and 
scarlet flower, in July, introduced from the 
Brazils, in the year 1810. 
A. Belladonna, flowering red, in July, and 
said to be hybrid, raised in 1821. 
A. Belladonna pallida, having a flesh- 
coloured bloom in August, introduced from 
the West Indies in 1712. 
These are all that have been recognised in 
Lindley and Paxton's Botanical Dictionary as 
hardy, and in the confusion of names and the 
shifting of particular species out of one genus 
into another, it is difficult to know how far 
we should be right in mentioning, under the 
same genus, a hardy and useful little flower, 
known to us for many years as Amaryllis 
lutea, one which blooms in the autumn, indeed 
we may say the winter almost, and to be 
purchased at the nurseries reasonably by the 
