366 
their easy management, even in his improved forms, and 
| being the earliest harbingers of spring; and tire country 
herbalist collects their flowers for his pleasant soporific 
| wine and sedative draughts. 
Primula cnpitata, like others of its kind, is included in the 
Natural Order of Primeworts, and in b-Pentandria 1 Mono- 
\ gynia of Linnseus. It is a hardy perennial, a native of gra- 
j velly soil in the Sikkin Himalaya, where it was gathered by 
! Dr. Hooker in the June of 1849, at an elevation of 10,000 
■ feet above the level of the sea. It dowered in Kew Gardens 
J upon a rock-border in October. 
Root, or rhizoma, a roundish, rough, brown tuber ; leaves 
all springing from the root, averaging four inches long, usual 
primrose-leaf shape, tooth-edged, mealy beneath, footstalks 
short and reddish. Flowers on a mealy stem a foot long, 
densely collected in a globular head ; corolla with a white 
mealy tube, but limb five-lobed, deep purple above and paler 
beneath. Water should he applied in the saucer of the pot 
in which it is grown, and like many other natives of great 
elevations, it seems to require the shelter of a cold frame in 
winter. 
PoiNXED-PETALKi) Onion (Allium acuminatum). — Pax¬ 
ton's Flower Garden, i. 129.—Many of our readers, when 
they look upon this member of the Natural Order of 
Lilyworts, and of 6 -Hexandria \-Monogynia of Linnaeus, 
will have no other associations with its form but those 
particularised by Dean Swift:— 
“ This is every cook’s opinion— 
No savoury dish without an onion : 
But lest your kissing should he spoil’d, 
Your onions must be throughly boil’d.” 
Those who know none of the genus but the Onion, 
Garlic, Leek, and others which are our usual kitchen- 
garden tenants, may be excused for looking thus upon 
them as ill-favoured both in form and fume; but there 
are many of their sisterhood deserving a much pleasanter 
character. For example, there are the Holy (A. moly ), 
the sweet-scented (A. fragrans), and Victors (A. Victo- 
rialis), all worthy to rank with such bulbous flowers as 
the Jonquil and Hyacinth ; and first among these beau- 
[Mahch 13. i 
ties of the Onion tribe, is the species now introduced to 
our notice. 
Allium acuminatum is about a foot high, and probably 
hardy, if properly stored in winter, being a native of Cali 
fornia, whence it was sent by Mr. Hartweg, and flowered in 
a greenhouse at Chiswick Gardens during the spring of 
I860. Its stem, like the Leek, is leafy at the base; leaves 
rush-like, and as long as the flower-stem ; flowers in loose 
umbels, sepals and petals sharp-pointed, transparent, but 
richly coloured at the points with crimson; seeds mostly j 
unfertile, black, with a soft skin. Mr. Paxton says, “ Its 
gay flowers can scarcely be regarded as inferior in beauty to 
the Guernsey Lily itself, and they are fax- less fugitive.”— 
B. J. 
THE EEUIT-GAEDEN. 
Pines. —Ever since the pine-apple came into general 
culture, the end of Fehruai-y and up to the middle of 
March has been the period for a close examination and 
re-ai-rangement of the whole stock. Now it is fit that 
beginners should ask why? For in these stirring 
and highly progressive times, they should not rest 
content with a rule without a reason; that is to say, 
no mere rule of practice should be submitted to, however 
high the authority, without first subjecting it to the test 
of those recognised principles, which the investigations 
of science have proved to be interwoven with the well¬ 
being of the plant in question. 
Although the pine-apple, as to its natural habits, is 
not decidedly inclined to a dormant state, yet such is in 
a great degree forced upon it in our northern climes. 
Light is tlie only circumstance that cannot be artifi¬ 
cially created. Heat can'be furnished to any amount; 
moisture also, and a circulation of air; but light—solar 
light—is beyond our reach. We have before remarked in 
these pages that a certain amount of light is indispen¬ 
sable to high culture; all advances in gi-owth attempted 
without the necessary amount of this, the great horti¬ 
cultural elixir, only tends to produce weakness, and 
that condition of growth which gardeners tenn “drawn.” 
By the early part of November, therefore, all good 
gardeners have brought their Pine stock into a state of 
comparative repose, as far as concerns the elongation of 
the plant. Fruiting pines, nevertheless, will continue 
to elaborate juices, and to pei-fect their already formed I 
and blossomed fruit, in spite of dai-k days, albeit at some 
sacrifice in point of flavour. Now, by the end of 
February, the bottom heats, if of fermenting materials, 
will become much declined, not only in their present 
amount of temperature, but in the prospective chances. 
The tan or other matei-ial becomes husky, and unequal 
in moisture; the drip may have injuriously penetrated 
some portions, whilst other parts, near the heating 
apparatus, will have become dried. It is almost supei-- 
fluous to add, that most of these evils are avoided by 
the use of a permanent source of bottom heat, as the hot- 
water tank; and to this may be added, another and very 
important matter with pines. There is then no necessity 
for disturbing the plants as with fermenting materials, 
and it is well known that the pine is very averse to being 
disturbed; the latter circumstance generally involving 
broken members, whether of root or foliage. 
It not unfrequently happens, too, that during the 
quarter of a year which the pine passes in a state of 
comparative rest, the stock becomes unequally classed. 
Some which were scarcely expected to do so, have shown 
fruit within the period; some kinds of faster growth 
than others, and less affected by low temperature, have 
increased so much in bulk, as to need removal out of 
the way of their humbler neighbours; hence a re-arrauge- 
ment, regulated by height, becomes desirable. Added ! 
to all this, re-potting, or shifting, becomes absolutely 
necessary with many, perhaps most of them; and this 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
