AMARYLLIDACEiE. 
131 
difficult to manage ; twice I lost it, notwithstanding the 
greatest care, and have at last succeeded in establishing one 
with better hopes by giving it water very seldom the first 
year, and rather more after it had formed a strong leaf, 
keeping it as much as possible in a draft of air in the green- 
house. It is planted in a mixture of white sand with a little 
light loam, with an open under drain. 
With respect to the other species there is some peculiarity 
in the soil congenial to them which it is very difficult to 
analyze. When I lived at Mitcham in Surrey, C. angusti- 
folius was a weed with me, ripening seed freely, and the 
seedlings quickly came to a flowering age and were vigor- 
ous, being potted in the soil of Mitcham common, which 
was a light brown earth with a little admixture of dead furze 
leaves on a gravelly substratum. Since I have lived in 
Yorkshire I have been able to find no soil that suited it, and 
although many changes were tried, the plants dwindled and 
all perished : nor have I found any species of Cyrtanthus 
succeed well in the soils to which I have access here. Mr. 
Rollisson had equal success with C. angustifolius at his 
nursery at Tooting near Mitcham. C. lutescens has, I be- 
lieve, never been in Europe, but Dr. Burchell has many 
specimens of it. It has very narrow leaves, and comes very 
near to C. odorus except in its colour, which is invariably a 
yellowish white. Ventricosus, figured by Jacquin under the 
name angustifolius, is only known to us by his plate and 
description. It was probably one of Masson’s plants from 
the East coast, and is allied to Collinus. Mr. Ker conceived 
that Jacquin had by mistake represented a scape of spiralis 
with the foliage of angustifolius ; but it is evident that his 
plant has not the inflorescence of spiralis. 
The recollection that Hippeastrum equestre, single and 
double, which will not exist in the light soils to which I have 
access in Yorkshire, throve exceedingly with me at Mitcham 
in Surrey, in the same soil that peculiarly suited Cyrtanthus 
angustifolius, and that all the Cyrtanthiform bulbs are 
disposed to rot in light earth at Spoff'orth, persuades me that 
wherever their cultivation is found difficult, a soil that is 
more disposed to set firm, and not fall to pieces when turned 
out of the pot, should be substituted, with good drainage 
and cautious watering. The difficulty is to find a light soil 
which has a little tenacity. There is a yellow earth of that 
nature in which I have observed Erica cinerea thrive with 
k 2 
