8 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ JAXL'AUY, 
soni as being fine South African Cycads; and pass on to Greenhouse Succulents, 
amongst which we find Aqcivq llcc/Elii, A. Dq Sincticinci, A. l^cssei'icmci ]itjst)’ix, 
A. inctinatciy A. Leguaycma^ A. horrida, and A. Nissoni, all occurring as mode¬ 
rate-sized manageable species, the last having the green leaves marked with a 
deep yellow line up the centre. Cotyledon fulgens is a handsome Mexican species, 
belonging to Echeveria (which modern botanists permit Cotyledon to swallow up), 
and produces a panicle of nodding racemes of bright coral-red flowers, yellow 
at the base. Finally, in Stapelia hystrix we have a remarkable South African 
plant, with star-shaped sulphur-coloured flowers, marked with transverse purple 
bars, and studded with awl-shaped processes tipped with pui’iile. We must 
reserve the Orchids and Stove plants for a subsequent page.—M. 
DAHLIA IMPERIALIS. ^ 
HEN Dr. Regel, in 1863, figured the Dahlia imperialis, which had just 
then been introduced from Mexico by Roezl, he remarked that he had 
read Reezl’s description with a somewhat incredulous smile,—such as 
might be indulged in by the reader when looking on his own figure of 
the plant, representing the white bell-shaped lily-like blossoms, with a pyramidal 
hundred-flowered candelabram-like inflorescence. Roezl indicated in this new 
Dahlia a sensational plant, bearing on a pyramidally-branched stem from 150 to 
200 large nodding flowers like those of yuccas or gigantic lilies, and noted it 
as the most beautiful and valuable of his introductions. A quantity of the roots 
received at the Botanic Garden of Zurich, in May, 1862, were planted in the 
open ground ; the plants soon reached 5 ft. to 6 ft. in height, but the flowers were 
.late in forming. The stately growth, and large doubly or almost triply pinnate 
leaves, it was observed, made it at least as beautiful a leaf-plant as the most effective 
of the Wigandias, Solanuins, and Nicotianas, so highly prized, while, as soon as it 
unfolded its flower panicles, it was seen to far surpass the most ornamental of them 
all. Since that time, the plant has spread over the Continental gardens, but was 
little known in England till 1868, when Mr. Bateman brought home roots from 
Cannes, where, about the beginning of November, he met vuth it in great beauty. 
It is naturally a late-flowering plant, and thus in our climate is useless for out-door 
purposes; but it forms a grand and novel subject for the conservatory during 
the autumn season, requiring, however, a temperature somewhat above that of 
an ordinary greenhouse to secure the development of its flowers. 
Naturally this Dahlia grows to a great height—12 ft. to 20 ft., before develop¬ 
ing its flowers, and this was felt to be an objectionable characteristic. Grown in a 
light orchard-house through the summer, and removed in autumn to a stove to 
perfect the flowers, the plants cultivated at Chiswick, where our figure was made, 
reached* the height just indicated, but having long bare stems below. Mr. Alfred 
Salter, of the Versailles Nursery, Hammersmith, has, however, hit upon a satisfac¬ 
tory mode of counteracting this tendency. He took grafts of the succulent stems 
