1876 . ] 
THE AURICULA.-CHAPTER VII. 
257 
lie sketched was placed, to be quite filled with its fragrance. To the purity and 
symmetry of C. Lucie Lemoine this variety adds greater depth of. flower, and as 
its habit is vigorous and free-blooming, we regard it as decidedly the best of the 
double whites yet known.—T. Moore. 
PYRETHRUM ULIGINOSUM. 
S his is certainly one of the best autumn herbaceous plants we have. We 
have a quantity of it here planted between Apple-trees in the kitchen 
f garden, and the masses of large white star-like flowers it bears is something 
astonishing. One plant alone must have more than a thousand. We cut 
large pieces of it to All vases along with other flowers, and the large white fragile 
flowers of this Pyrethum show off the others to great advantage, especially 
when there is a quantity of evergreen mixed in. At night they are well suited 
for dinner-table decoration. At this season of the year, when white flowers, and 
indeed all flowers are scarce, this is a plant of exceeding value to the decorator, 
and we find it now an indispensable plant for our autumn decoration. It stands 
in water a long time, and does not throw off a disagreeable smell; as some plants 
do when standing long.— Chevalier. 
THE AURICULA. 
■ Chapter VII.— Wintering.—Work for the Month. 
^^HEEE would be little need to care for wintering, under some protection, 
such a perfectly hardy plant as the Auricula, if only our English winters 
were like those it can enjoy in its wild state. But they are not. It would 
be a sore puzzle and shock to the Primula Auricula^ on Alpine heights 
and slopes, to have no bed-clothes of dry snow to turn the keen edge of the 
glittering frost, but to be choked with November fogs, to be drenched in December 
rains, to be chilled to the root by thaws, and inspired with ill-dreams of untimely 
growth and blooming by the play of sickly sunshine in its face. Nature largely 
withholds from it, when dormant, the two unneeded stimulants of light and 
moisture ; but as we cannot ensure our Auriculas the same unerring safeguard 
in the open air, we can only imitate Nature as best we may. A glass protection 
fairly enough answers the purposes of Alpine snows; and while it affords a diy 
and airy covering, the uninterrupted light is no disadvantage here, for the 
Auricula is not of so deciduous a habit as some of its wild sisterhood, and light 
is always welcome where there is foliage. 
It is not dry frost that can harm this plant, but only too much wet; and yet 
perhaps few beginners have faced their first November with the Auricula with¬ 
out fear. In unacquaintance with its habits, they have watched, with finger 
between the lip, leaf after leaf turn yellow, as the plants merely went down to 
winter size. They have read at night, in faded numbers of old florist magazines, 
—whose very smell was mildew,—some gruesome tale of winter failure with 
Auriculas, and the effect has been like that of ghost-stories on a nervous tem- 
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