SIPHOCAMPYLUS COCCINEUS. 
449 
watered. The cuttings ought to be covered with 
a hand-glass, or rather a bell-glass, pressed 
into the ground to exclude air; here they may 
remain, in the shade, until they are struck, 
when they may be potted off, and treated like 
seedlings. But Calceolarias may be grown 
into specimen plants, as all outsized subjects 
are called ; that is to say, the plant may be, 
after bloom, cut down, shifted into a pot a 
size larger, and grown until the roots touch 
the side, when it may have one more shift, 
and so long as the plant keeps growing, you 
encourage the side growth, instead of cutting 
it away, and propagating the plant. In this 
way Calceolarias may be grown until they 
will occupy peck pots, and form masses of 
plant and flower as large as gooseberry bushes. 
These specimen plants, however, have their 
evils. They are obliged to undergo a com- 
plete course of mechanical contrivance: every 
stem has to be supported by a stick, to pre- 
vent it from falling over, or drooping. The pot 
looks more like a piece of toy-work than a 
receptacle for a plant in the hand of a gar- 
dener; and in no instance has the flower 
been shown so good after cultivating in this 
-extravagant manner, as when it depended 
for the beauty upon a single flower stem, and 
bloomed each individual flower in perfection. 
The only proper way to show the grace and 
elegance of this plant is to grow it strong, 
with a single heart, and a single truss of 
bloom. The single stem alone requires sup- 
port if travelling, but will retain its character 
and beauty in the greenhouse without support. 
Here the actual value of a variety can be 
seen, beeause there is no distortion ; as it 
grows its fate may be decided. The blooms 
ample, but not crowded, can develop their 
size and form, which they cannot when con- 
strained into a mass by the force of wooden 
supports ; for it is notorious that people who 
buy seedlings from their appearance as seed- 
lings, are dreadfully annoyed and disappointed 
when they see the noble plants, as they are 
called, exhibited the next year with large 
quantities of flowers, which have lost both 
size and character, and with an immense 
bundle of sticks, which no improvement in 
the flower in the mass, or in the plant, can 
ever compensate for ; they seem no longer 
plants, but artificial substitutes for plants. 
The flowers cannot come so large, nor be so 
well developed nor formed ; they do not 
come to their colour and character. All these 
plants require great care in the wintering ; 
damp affects them disadvantageously ; there- 
fore, if they are kept in pits, these pits must 
be dry at the bottom, and laid sloping, so that 
the wet from watering shall not soak into the 
ground, which, indeed, ought to be so made as 
not to admit of it. There are two kinds of 
Calceolaria, the herbaceous and the shrubby ; 
but we do not recommend the herbaceous to 
be grown at all ; they are by no means so 
handsome, nor so well adapted for show. In 
no one point do they approach the shrubby as 
plants, and nothing but their having, in the 
first instance, yielded larger flowers, obtained 
for them even the temporary popularity they 
enjoyed. It is true the Horticultural Society 
gave prizes expressly for herbaceous kinds, 
but in all places where Floriculture was under- 
stood, they were not at all encouraged, nor is 
it desirable they should even be treated of in 
a work devoted to better and more lasting 
beauties. 
SIPHOCAMPYLUS COCCINEUS. 
(Hooker.) 
THE SCARLET-FLOWERED SIPHOCAMPYLUS. 
This plant has been incidentally noticed on 
former occasions, but we are now enabled to 
give a sketch w r hich will serve to convey an 
accurate idea of its appearance. It is alto- 
gether a dwarf-growing species, throwing up 
a tuft of numerous stems, which are suffruti- 
cose, or shrubby, at the base, but more suc- 
culent above ; they grow erect, and bear 
alternate, broadly ovate leaves, which are 
doubly serrated and glabrous. The flowers 
are produced singly from the axils of several 
of the leaves towards the top of the stem ; 
they are large, bright scarlet, two inches or 
more in length, and somewhat resembling 
some of the tube-flowered scarlet sages. 
It is a stove plant, and has been introduced 
from the Organ Mountains of Brazil by the 
Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter, who have exhibited 
the plant at most of the principal London 
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