HYBRID INTERMIXTURES. 
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ginea ; the flower has assumed a form totally different from 
its natural shape, being like a bag or purse two inches long, 
widest in the middle, and gradually tapering almost to a 
point at the two extremities. Sometimes one or two such 
are on a stalk amongst the natural flowers, and sometimes 
nearly a whole head has consisted of them. This may 
authorize an expectation of very curious garden varieties 
being hereafter produced in this ( genus. The whole genus 
agrees in constitution, liking a clear air, and a very moist 
soil. The hybrid Gladioli, of which a large portion are 
sufficiently hardy, flower about the same time as the roses, 
and contribute quite as much in general effect to the em- 
bellishment of the garden by their fine colours and profusion 
of blossom. They succeed very well in the natural soil of 
the garden atSpofforth, which is a good yellowish light loam, 
suitable for barley, and also in the artificial borders of peat 
and sand, where, however, in a dry summer they stand more 
in need of water. These hardy crosses are between G. Car- 
dinalis, bland us, carneus, inflatus, angustus, and tristis, and 
they vary with every shade of colour from white to scarlet, 
rose, coppery, and blackish purple, and some are exquisitely 
speckled in consequence of the cross with tristis. They 
succeed best when grown into a thick tuft, in which state the 
profusion of blossom is admirable, the cluster of bulbs and 
the old skins of decayed bulbs permitting the wet to drain 
away, and preventing the earth from lying too close and 
heavy on the bulbs in autumn and winter. Clusters have 
now stood undisturbed at Spoffbrth above twenty years, with 
the precaution of covering them with leaves from November 
to March or April. There is danger in disturbing and 
parting them, for numbers will rot if re-set separately ; and, 
if they must be divided, it is best to do so in April, or, if it 
be done in the autumn, the roots taken up should be potted, 
and turned out again in the spring. The beautiful crosses 
with hirsutus, recurvus, and versicolor are more delicate 
plants, and do not succeed well in the border. I have not 
succeeded in obtaining any cross, on the correctness of which 
I can depend, by admixture with Gladiolus psittacinus 
(Nathalensis), and I do not believe that it will breed with 
any of the above. Like all the European species, it pre- 
sents its flowers in front of the stem, which is erect ; and 
repeated experiments have shewn that every flower of G. 
tristis which was touched with the pollen of G. Byzantinus 
