December 1. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
159 
employed than in gathering together all such plants— 
1 mean on paper—for some of them aro extremely 
pretty, and ought to bo better known as half-hardy 
herbaceous plants. 
TRITELEJA, 
Or rather, Tritelia, as it is sometimes spelled, is a 
genus of small, hardy, or all-hut hardy, bulbs, very 
closely in affinity with Brodieea, and not unlike it in 
looks ‘and habit. The old Grandflora, sent home, I 
believe, by Douglas, from North-West America, has' 
been lost, like his Calochorts, long ago. Laxa is one of 
the prettiest and most profuse ilovverers of hardy Lily- 
worts ; but is rather difficult to keep over the winter. 
I think this is also one of Douglas’s bulbs, and i fear 
it has gone after Grandflora , for I have not seen it 
since ISS35, when I lost it in Herefordshire Its leaves 
are long and narrow, the flower scape requires support, 
the umbel being too heavy for it, like that of Milia 
biflora, which came out at the same time. The flowers 
are of a rich blue colour, aud from twelve to twenty of 
them come in one umbel. 1 had it in almost all peat, 
and that, I think, was the death of it, and of the Calo- 
chorti as well; and I seriously warn all bulb growers to 
avoid peat as much as possible, till they are quite sure 
of a new bulb. Uniflora is something like a Crocus in 
habit, bearing one flower only on a scape; the colour is 
a licacy-blue. Mr. Low, of the Clapton Nursery, intro¬ 
duced it from some one at Buenos Ayres; but it is a 
native of Mendoza, where Dr. Gillies found it long since. 
The yellow one, said to be from Monto Video, I never 
saw, and know nothing about it. 
UECEOLTNA PENDULA. 
This is a very rare bulb, from South America, high 
up in Peru, and I am not aware that it ever flowered in 
England. Those who put it in the stovo soon lost it. 
It is so much like Griffinia hyacinthina in leaf, that any 
gardener would be excused lor treating it to a stove 
climate, if ho did not know that it was a half-hardy 
plant. It is the Crinum urceolatuvi of Ruiz; aud there 
is another, called fulvea, from a place in Peru called 
Parcatiuanca. This has not flowered here cither, that 
I know of; but, from the dried specimens sent over by 
Matthews, it must be a very nice plant, with five flowers 
in the umbel—and they not unlike some Bomarea —with 
a noble-looking Griffiuia-like leaf, having the foot-stalk 
full four inches long, with a broad blade, something in 
the way of the bottom leaves of the new Lilium gigan- 
teum. 
Wachendorfia, Watsonia, and Wormbea, have been 
treated of among “ Cape Bulbs,” therefore 
ZEPHYRANTHES, 
is the only remaining section on my list; and the first 
species in the order of the alphabet is 
ZEPHYRANTHES ATAMASCO. 
This is the old Amaryllis Atamasco of Linnaeus, and 
the Atamasco Lily of our old books. At the time (17117) 
Linnams published his Amaryllis (Hort, Clilfort. p. 135) 
all the species which he knew of them, and which were 
then in the Clilfort Garden, have since turned out to 
belong to as many genera, or sections of the great 
family, as Sprekelia, Zephyranth.es, Neritie, and Oporan- 
thus. Although he gave the name “because Amaryllis 
was the Bella Donna of Virgil,” he had not seen the 
Bella Donna Lily of Italy, and, therefore, could not 
describe the type-plant on which he founded the genus. 
The Atamasco is the best known species of Zephyr- 
anthes to British gardeners; and those who know them 
not, have only to think of a large whito Crocus, to be of 
a bright red colour in the bud, and pure white after 
opening, and they at once have the Atamasco Lily in 
idea. It grows in any good garden soil, but if it is to 
be left out in winter, it ought to be planted in white 
sand, and four or five inches deep. Although it grows in 
open pastures of Virginia and Carolina, it is apt to rot 
in damp, or very strong, soil with us in winter. 
ZEPHYRANTHES CANDIDA. 
This is also a well-known and a perfectly hardy bulb, 
with white flowers and rush-like leaves. A bunch of 
white Crocus flowers set among a lot of small Jonquil 
leaves gives a good idea of it. It is a native of Buenos 
Ayres, but is much hardier than Atamasco ; and where 
it does well, it is one of the best hardy border bulbs we 
have, flowering all the summer, until stopped by the 
frost, and the leaves hold green all winter. In the 
chalky soil, at Slirubland Park, it increased prodigiously, 
but never flowered worth a button. I have had it, how 
ever, with dozens of flowers open on a tuft for months 
together. In Buenos Ayres it grows in such abund¬ 
ance along the banks of the great La Plata river, that 
the shore is silvered with it for miles, as the Cotton 
Grass of Scotland, on a smaller scale, appears on the 
margins of bogs and swampy ground. 
ZEPHYRANTHES CAEINATA. 
This is my own favourite of all the genus. The flower 
is of great substance, large for such a small plant, aud 
of a bright, shining, rose colour, expanding widely under 
a bright sun. The narrow leaves are purple at the 
bottom, and look exactly like those of a small, young 
ofl'set of Valotta purpurea minor. It delights in light 
sandy loam, and flowers in May and June, producing 
only one flower on a scape, like all the species of this 
genus. They all grow and flower in the summer, and 
go to rest in winter, except Candida. 
ZEPHYRANTHES CHLOROLEUCA. 
This is a two-flowered species of Habranthus, now 
called Chilensis, with stout, greenish-white flowers, about 
which nothing has ever been known in cultivation. 
ZEPHYRANTHES DRUMMONDI. 
This is the same as Cooperia pedunculata, supposed 
by Donn to be a Zephyrauth. 
ZEPHYRANTHES MESOCHLOA. 
This is another whito flowering species, from Buenos 
Ayres, with a greenish-whito bottom to the flower, a 
little stained with rod on the outside. It is all but 
hardy, and seeds freoly on a south border. 
ZEPHYRANTHES ROSEA. 
Another very pretty little bulb, from the high moun¬ 
tains in Cuba, and likes a warm situation, or to be kept 
in a pot in the greenhouse. It is much in the way of 
Garinata, but with a smaller flower. 
ZEPHYRANTHES STRIATA. 
This, and another oue much like it, called Ackermani, 
is a variety of Verecunda. The three are from Mexico, 
or Guatemala. 'They have white flowers, tinged with 
red beforo they expand, which they do quite flat on a 
hot day. They are very free flowering bulbs, and last a 
long time in bloom; aud each flower is succeeded by a 
seed pod, and ihe seedlings flower early, with very little 
attention. 
ZEPHYRANTHES TUBISPATIIA. 
This is rather a stove bulb, from the Blue Mountains, 
in Jamaica, with white flowers that arc greenish below. 
ZEPHYRANTHES VERECUNDA. 
This is incidentally mentioned above under Striata; 
a desirable pretty border bulb. 
