LESCHENAULTIAS. 
125 
to equalise tones and maintain the proper proportion of xanthic 
and cerulean colours in the parterre. Its average height may be 
stated as eighteen inches or two feet, and if moderately strong 
plants are stationed in peat and loam, at about the same measure¬ 
ment apart, they will form a brilliant mass, and continue good 
till late in the autumn. The plants may then be taken up and 
potted without cutting, and being kept in a warm house 
through the winter, the tops may be struck in spring, and will 
furnish good specimens for turning out in the same season. 
LESCHENAULTIAS. 
This fine genus of New Holland plants has advanced so 
rapidly in public estimation within the last few years, as to be 
now indispensable to every good collection, and the prominent 
position occupied by several of its members at all the best floral 
meetings fully prove the distinction to be well placed. Specimens 
of L. formosa are more frequently met at horticultural shows 
than perhaps any other plant, and yet it may be taken as a severe 
test of the cultivator’s abilities, for it cannot be grown without 
good attention and skillful management. Like most of the 
plants from the same country, this is remarkable for its suscepti¬ 
bility to injury from sudden fluctuations, either of temperature or 
the supply of food, too much heat, cold, moisture, or drought are 
alike fatal, and though no plant can grow with greater freedom 
or flower more abundantly than this when in a healthy condition, 
so also none are more quickly or irretrievably ruined by excesses 
of any kind, and the remark applies to the whole of the genus ; 
for place them in proper soil, and supply them duly with the 
grand agents in cultivation, air, light, and water, and nothing 
can be more satisfactory than their progress; but neglect them, if 
only for a couple of days, and it will certainly be apparent, pro¬ 
bably in the death of the most promising. 
As all the species require the same treatment, I shall confine 
myself to that pursued with some plants of formosa , which are 
now in perfection. In March 1846, healthy young plants were 
procured, which just filled four-inch pots, having round branching 
