^November 19,1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
4-25 
to be occupied. If several are required leave a sufficient number 
of buds to produce them. If only one branch be needed to run up 
to a considerable height before the work of furnishing the required 
space can be attempted, cut back to one or two buds, ultimately 
selecting the best of these for the leader or main stem, and 
permit no others to extend until this has reached the space 
intended to be furnished; then lateral branches should be 
encouraged in the necessary directions. These will finally con¬ 
stitute the framework of the tree, and from them will issue the 
flowering shoots yearly at every joint. To avoid overcrowding 
these shoots should be annually cut back to two or three buds 
during the winter. For growing over arbours, wire, or iron arches, 
the Wistaria is very suitable, and may be so employed with the 
certainty of producing a beautiful effect in the course of time. 
Clematises. 
As a flowering climber of quite a different type the Clematis 
must next claim attention. If I can say anything that would 
induce the more extended culture of these beautiful plants in 
northern districts, particularly near towns, I should feel amply 
rewarded for penning these notes. They are easily cultivated, 
profuse bloomers, and wonderfully showy during their season of 
bloom, which upon the whole is a pretty extensive one. There are 
several sections of Clematis, the hardiest being the Jackmanni, 
the montana, and the viticella sections. The Jackmanni and the 
viticella sections flower on summer shoots from July to October, 
and montana blooms from May to July on the last year’s ripened 
wood. 
Clematises are slender in their habits of growth, but they are 
exceedingly vigorous, and therefore require rich soil to start with 
at planting time, and regular applications of rich material to the 
roots by means of mulching every year afterwards. This indicates 
that a light, poor soil will not grow the Clematis well, but a good 
holding soil that will not permit the manurial substances supplied 
to pass away too quickly is the material required. In addition to 
being naturally of a rich and strong nature, the soil should also be 
of a calcareous nature, or made so by the addition of lime, which 
is found to be of great advantage. 
Young plants of any of the sections may be planted almost at 
any season of the year, but not if the roots have to be seriously 
disturbed, and with care in keeping the ball of roots moist, and fed 
if necessary, the beauty of a plant need not be diminished nor its 
vigour lessened even if planted from a pot when in full bloom. 
The best time, however, for planting is either in the autumn or 
spring. If not thoroughly hardened to exposure choose the latter 
period and plant as growth commences, but for a thoroughly 
hardened specimen with vigorous shoots and abundant roots autumn 
is perhaps the best period of any. Planting being completed, then 
comes the question, How should the Clematis be pruned ? A 
reference to previous remarks on the manner of blooming would 
answer this ; but it will be well, however, to make clear the correct 
methods of procedure, so that the Clematis may be grown and 
flowered cn a few feet of trelliswork or wall, as well as be allowed 
to ramble over wider spaces, whether of walls, trees, shrubs, hedges, 
or screens. 
All varieties belonging to the Jackmanni or viticella sections 
may be pruned in winter or early spring almost close to the ground 
or to a point near it where there are good bold buds, as it is upon 
the new wood of the current year that the flowers are produced. 
That is one method of pruning these varieties, and it is an excellent 
one for certain positions that require to be clothed with foliage 
and flowers as low as possible ; but if required to clothe higher 
posit'ons, the upper part only of a wall, the roof of a verandah or 
porch, or other lofty points, then low pruning is neither necessary 
nor desirable. But in these cases, however, the same fundamental 
principles must be kept in mind and adopted with this difference, 
that instead of pruning the plants to the ground they should be 
pruned to the main stem, cutting back the principal shoots which 
issue from it to their boldest basal buds for the purpose of covering 
the space at a certain point. Clematis montana of course does not 
need this annual shortening, thinning the old wood being the 
most that is necessary. The last, the easiest, and wildest way of 
cultivation is never to prune at all, but it is a method which pro¬ 
duces a veritable thicket of naked and useless wood through which 
the rising sap in spring has to make its way, weakened and lowered 
in vitality by the process before it can produce young shoots, which 
may eventually flower. Those of the montana type will certainly 
do with less pruning than the others mentioned, but this section 
should never be allowed to retain crowded shoots or useless wood. 
A few words as to the best varieties for hardy climbing 
purposes. Clematis flammula, with white sweet-scented flowers, 
blooming from July to October, is a good old kind belonging to 
the Jackmanni type. All the varieties of Jackmanni, of which 
there are many, are especially good. The best in the viticella 
section is Mrs. James Bateman of a pale lavender colour. Clematis 
montana, with white vanilla-scented flowers, and vitalba, also with 
white flowers, are both rapid growers, and will soon cover plenty of 
space. The last named requires pruning on the shortening system. 
It is the only true species native to England, and is popularly 
known as the Traveller’s Joy, because oc the peculiar feathery 
construction of its seed vessels, which are very prominent in 
winter. It blooms in August.—E. D. S. 
(To be continued .) 
ARISiEMA WRAYI. 
At a recent meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, from 
Messrs. B. S. Williams & Son, Upper Holloway, a plant was exhibited 
of this distinct and rather attractive Aroid, which is evidently well 
FIG. 82.— ARISJEMA WRAYI. 
adapted for culture in pots. The spathes are neat in shape, and of 
moderate size ; the soft shade of green, the white centre, and the long 
slender green spadix impart a very graceful appearance to the plant. 
Sir Joseph Hooker has given the appended remarks upon the genus and 
this particular species. 
“ The genus Arisasma is a remarkable one amongst Aroids for its 
wide range in latitude, from the tropics to far into the north temperate 
zone ; and as might be expected from this, the elevation it attains is 
equally remarkable, from the low-lying equatorial regions of the Malayan 
Archipelago, to an elevation of 12,000 feet in the Himalaya. And what 
is very singular in a genus of so wide a distribution, there are no sectional 
groups of it more characteristic of the colder than of the hotter regions, 
or vice versa. The nearest ally of A. Wrayi is the Javanese and Sumatran 
A. filiforme, Blame. A. Wrayi itself is a native of Perak, where it was 
