THE COTTAGE GAKDENER. 
161 
j Beckaiber 2 . 
I 
I tho genus under cultivation. It was gathered along 
with a few more of them by a Frenchman named 
Feuillet, who first introduced them. Linneeus named 
tliem for the Frenchman, and founded tho genus on 
j 2 ^ereijriiia, but, by a misprint, it is called 
' in Feuillet's book; and in tho Cottage Gardeners' 
Dictionary; also in every list of them, but one, that 
has appeared in the old or new world from that day 
j to tills. Hr. Herbert corrected the error, however, 
I in 18-17. Peregrina means “ a foreign huly,” and it 
j is evident that Ijinnseus, wlio was fond of joking, 
gave a feminine termination to llaron Alstrbmer’s 
name, purposely to suit peregrina. It is one of tho 
best pot-plants among them, and is hardy enough to 
live in a border or cold pit, if tlie border is slightly 
covered during frost. There is a garden variety of it 
with wliite flowers, which does better in a pot, and 
Gumming found a greenish-white variety of it near 
I Valparaiso; still it is not easy to get it to cross with 
I others, and the white one does not always come true 
j from seeds. 
I A. psittacina (Parrot-like).—T'his is the next tallest 
and hardiest after aurea, and will grow and flower in the 
open border in any good garden soil. The flowers are 
dull red, with green tips and black spots. This came 
out in 1826. 
A. pidchella^PvBitg). —Orange and red, approaching 
to scarlet. For many years this was considered a 
distinct species, and, as such, it was figured in all the 
Magazines: but now it must fall into Van Houtte's 
Ghent varieties along with another called Shnsii 
or Simsiana. They are all from a common type— 
lucninntha, and any one may run them into endless 
I varieties. Since 1 wrote about/m/W'/nt/tu (page 112), 1 
, have learned that i\[. Van Floutte denies a hybrid migin 
to his seedlings, but that he had them from wild seeds 
—which only jiroves that tho seeds were gathered in 
I South Chili, where Poeppig states that he found 
hannanlha in meadows near Antuco, running into all 
shades of red, orange, lemon and white. Another, 
called pilosei in the “ llotanical Register,” is one of 
them. All these varieties make a gorgeous bed planted 
together, and are as easily managed as so many common 
I tulips or hyacinths, only that the roots ought to be 
j taken up every other year to prevmnt their going too 
deep iu the bed. 
A.pulchra (Fair).—This is the last in our enumera¬ 
tion of them ; it was first figured in the Botanical 
Magazine. Jt is called tricolor, in Hooker’s Exotic 
Flora, and Flos Martini, in the Botanical Register. 
Gumming found it near Valparaiso, and it appears to 
have a great range in Chili, according to the other 
travellers. When 1 was collecting the species, many 
years ago, I found two or three seedlings of this at Mr. 
Loddige’s Nursery, at Hackney; they were a dirty white, 
I with green tips, and not worth much, but proving how 
_ much they are given to sport. Tricolor is a better 
' name than the true one, but it has four distinct colours, 
' if not five—a white or light ground, streaked with 
purple, red and green tij)s, with a dash of yellow across 
the petals. Jt is quite as hardy as the rest of them, 
and is well adapted for pot-culture. I once had a beau¬ 
tiful bed of them, a circle, planted thus—a large mass 
of aurea in the centre, then a row of p)sittavina, round 
ha>Aiuintha, and some oi pulchra, wad peregr'ina, in 
one row, for want of a good stock of them, with a 
I border of Hookeriana; this bed i afterwards turned 
into a basket-form, by planting a row of Bomarea 
acuti/olia, and hirtclla, or ovata, as some call it, quite 
I round the sides; the bed was three feet deep, and nearly 
one-half of (juite rotten leaf-mould, with a soft yellow 
loam. The two Boinareas grew ten to twelve i'eet in 
i this, and were trained round and round, and at a height 
I of eighteen inches, on sticks with a handle of hazel rod 
across, on which acutifolia was trained from both ends. 
This bed was much admired, but now, by using the best 
of the Ghent seedlings, along with aurea and psittacina 
in the middle, a splendid bed, of any shai)e, might be 
made much easier, and I can vouch for it, that if it was 
hedged with these twining llomareas, planted also 
eighteen or thirty inches, so as to get a thick mass of 
them, they would much improve the bed, and be in 
character too, besides the novelty of the thing; for I am 
, not aware of any one else having ever used them so. 
I may remark, that almost all the Alstrdmerias are 
I natives of Chili, and that out of forty Boinareas de¬ 
scribed, none wore found in the whole of Chili, hut two 
species. The rest are natives of Peru, and northwards 
into Guatemala and Mexico. 
Amaryllis. —Since this genus was printed for the 
Cottage Gardeners' Dictionary, strange relations re¬ 
specting it have apjiearcd, which overthrow both I)r. 
Herhert’s arrangements, and that by l)r. Lindloy, iu 
the Vegetable Kingdom. 'J'he greatest amount of prac¬ 
tical knowledge on one side, and consummate philosophy 
on both sides, wore not sulficiciit to bear the natural 
test of a true arrangement. In the Avuiryllidaccic, the 
greatest point of diti'erence by which Amaryllis, and 
other allied genera are kept asunder, is a solid flower- 
stalk, or a hollow one. So many genera have the 
flower-stalk hollow, or pipy, and so m,auy tho reverse. 
According to l)r. Herbert's ideas, a bidb with a solid 
flower-stalk or scape, could no more bo crossed with one 
having the scape hollow, than with “ an oak-tree.” 
In the Vegetable Kingdom, the true Amaryllids arc 
also divided into two sections, tho point of difference 
being the cup or coronet, peculiar to many of them, 
as tho cup inside the flower of a Narcissus. All 
Amaryllids having this cup in tho flower are in one 
division, and those of them wanting tho cup in the 
other. Two very simple and convenient arrangements, 
but they are not natui'al, neither are the genera iu them 
placed according to their natural ailiuity. In both, 
Amaryllis is })laccd far from Vallota, and in both, 
Vallota is kept much asunder from Brunsvigia, yet the 
three ought to stand side-by-side, and be followed by 
Cyrtanthus. Hr. Herbert could not cross one s])ecies of 
Brunsvigia (multijiora) with Amaryllis, therefore, he 
thought Brunsvigia might “yet be u])held.” Rut in 
New South Wales, where all the Brunsvigias and 
Amaryllises cross freely, the cross seedlings from Bruns- 
vig'ia multijiora are the most showy of all, as wo might 
expect. The gentleman who effected this cross with 
whom the plants first flowered iu 1847, tells us (Gar¬ 
deners' Chronicle, 1850, 470), that as many as from 
twenty to forty flowers were on a single scape, and that 
the “ colour is generally like that of Passiflora her- 
mesina." And at home I have put the union of Vallota, 
Cyrtanthus, and Brunsvigia Josephina-, beyond a doubt. 
If Dr. Herbert was alive, he would be the first to 
acknowledge the necessity for re-arranging of the genera 
afresh, and this explanation was necessary at the outset, 
iu order to remove doubts that might naturally be 
entertained against such and such cros.ses as I shall 
suggest here and there iu these jiapcrs on bulbs. I 
have no wish to change a single name; it is more con¬ 
venient to hold on as wo are, as we do with Azalea, 
Rhodora, and Rhododendron. All that I claim is, a 
fair hearing, because I have now no means of pushing 
such experiments myself. 
Amaryllis Belladonna. —This is the best known of all 
tho family; and whatever we may think of the soil in 
which it is found grownug at the Cape, there is no doubt 
but it likes a good rich soil and an open air treatment 
in this country. 1 never saw it growing in a pot half so 
finely and so vigorously as it does in tho open air. 
Miller’s compost for it is as good as any that has been 
tried since; at two feet deep, after draining the border. 
