330 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENER. 
January 27. 
of Good Hope, growing near Cape Town. With the 
exception of Griffinia hyacinthina, it is the only bulb in 
the order that will grow better in peat than in loam.. 
It flowers in the autumn, before the leaf, like a true 
Amaryllis, and grows through the winter like an Ixia, 
requhing the same kind of treatment in all respects. 
CiiLiuANTHus FRAGRANS. —Tliis is a yellow-floweriug 
sweet-scented bulb, which is as much prized in the gar¬ 
dens in Beunos Ayres, Chili, and Peru, as any of the 
Narcissus tribe is with us. In its outward aspect it is 
not much unlike some kind of yellow Narcissus, but it 
belongs to the Pancratioid section of the order, although 
hardly any traces of the cup is seen. If there was a 
good demand for this bulb, they might increase it 
almost as fast as the potato, it is so notorious for 
making offsets, so much so, indeed, that they hinder the 
old bulb from flowering. It is a summer-growing bulb, 
and flowers freely with us in the open air; it will not 
stand out our winters, however, as the wet border splits 
the old bulb. It should be taken up in the autumn and 
dried. The very same treatment we give to Gladiolus 
2 )sittacinus is best for it. It is not the Pancratium 
of the “ Flora Peruviana,” as has been asserted. 
(See Clitanthus). 
Choretis. —We know only two species of this genus, 
and two beautiful things they are, certainly; but how 
the learned demonstrator of the order, Dr. Herbert, 
could see any difference in them from Hymenocallis, 
passes my comprehension. The anther turns up a little 
at both ends, just like a school-boy’s “pot-hook,” and is 
attached to the filament a little nearer the upper end 
than is usual in Hymenocallis, and there is a little 
ditference in the shape of the seed, that is all. However, 
I must keep to my text; I have no desire to change a 
name, but I must be allowed to make some few remarks 
from the evidence of my senses, and I shall show my 
ideas on Hymenocallis when I come to it. 
Choretis inhabits the north-eastern parts of Mexico, 
and onwards through Texas, where Drummond met 
with them growing in good loamy-soil; but in pots they 
delight in a rather sandy-soil, and abundance of water; 
and I have not the least doubt that, if we had a good 
stock of themj'’T^ead of being very scarce, we might \ 
turn them out in May into the margins of the ponds 
and ditches, where they would grow and flower as freely 
as rushes. 
Choretis GLADCA has the leaves upright, sea-green, i 
nearly three inches wide, and twenty inches long; the 
flower-scape is stout, and above a foot long, carrying 
three or four flowers on the top ; the flowers are sessile; 
that is, without a footstalk. Every Amaryllld that is 
sessile, like this, must have the seed-pod resting on the 
top of the scape ; from the seed-pod of this Choretis 
rises a green tube, full six inches long, longer than the 
tube of the Night-blowing Cereus (Cactus), then a wide 
open flower nearly four inches across, as white as a lily, 
with a tinge of green on the back of the midribs, and a 
large green eye. The cup inside is also very large, 
white, and jagged on the edge between the stamens. 
Altogether, it is a very beautiful flower. The bulbs 
may be kept dry six months, from the end of August 
to March. 
Choretis Galvestonensis (Galveston Bay, Texas).— 
Another fine plant, in all respects like the last, only 
with all the parts much smaller, and with deep green 
instead of glaucous leaves, also four flowers always on a 
scape. 
Clitanthus luteus. —This is the Pancratium luteus 
of Buiz. It has much the aspect of a small Narcissus, 
with yellow flowers, and always two of them on a scape; 
the flowers are stalked (pedunculate), the stalk above 
an inch long; then a round seed-pod, and a yellow 
flower with a longish, small tube, evidently very near 
Chlidanthus, and if the two would breed together, the 
offspring would be more entitled to be called Peruvian 
Daffodils than Ismenc. Before 1840, this genus was 
spelled Clinanthus, but that is now discarded, as giving 
a wrong meaning. There are two more species, humilis 
and Macleana, but I know nothing about them. 
Olivia nobilis. —A well-known plant from the Cape, 
with the looks of a young Agapanthus, but with stifl'er 
leaves, and with turned-down flowers from the top of 
the scape (Cyrtan tin form). This is of the very simplest 
culture, if you keep it from heat, and do not force it 
into any hurry. It will grow in any light earth in a 
pot. You might try all the mucks, from the Lobos 
Islands to the Isle of Dogs, on it, without any perceji- 
tible effect. It will grow well in moss without any 
earth ; and it ivill grow in any light or heavy compost, 
if it is kept rather dry in winter. Whenever it gets 
sulky, and refuses to grow', you must shake all the soil 
from it, and begin afresh: there is no doctoring of it. 
If you keep the frost from it, in an outside border, it 
will flower and ripen seeds freely enough. I had it so, 
and it took more than a year to ripen its scarlet berries, 
which look exactly like the ripe seeds of Asparagus. 
Seedlings of it would tire one’s jiatience with their slow 
grow'th; and if you try to force them, they are as liliely 
to stand still as not. Dr. Herbert said, “ I believe it to 
be as possible for a Olivia to breed with a Cyrtanihus, 
as with an Oak-tree; ” but I differ from him, and from 
all who separate it from the vicinity of the Cyrtanthi. 
Coburghia. — 'This is “a happy family” of bulbs, 
they so agree with each other in their odd ways. If 
you ask a gardener what sort of things they are, he will 
say, “ Peruvian bulbs, very beautiful, ma’am; very easy 
to grow'; too easily increased—the worse luck; not very 
fond of W'ater, or particular about soil; not over partial 
to a bright sun, it is true; but there is so much bother 
with them, as they go to rest all the w'iuter; and you 
can begin them in the spring any time it is convenient; 
and then, you see, if one is pinched for room, as ue 
generally are in the spring of the year, we can plant 
them out on a warm border, and they will grow all the 
same.” “ Yes, yes; but now 1 do not know w'hat kind 
of flowers they produce.” “Nor 1, ma’am; for 1 never 
could get them to blow.” There is not a gardener in 
the Iciugdom who has flowered the same bulb of any of 
the species of Cohouryliia three years in succession, and 
yet they never refuse to flower the first or second year 
after they come over. In Mexico, and other Mexican 
cities and towns, they grow one of the species in pots, 
as we do Hyacinths, time out of mind, and in such 
numbers that an erroneous idea has got into our books 
that it is a native of Mexico; but I have never heard 
of any of them being met with there in a wild state; 
and J. Maclean, Esq., a British merchant at Lima, dug 
up the one they cultivate in Mexico on the hills facing 
that part of the Peruvian coast; and he found some of 
them growing in scanty soil, on the edges of rocky 
precipices, where great heat and terrible gusts of wind 
must often affect them. The way I recommend their 
cultivation is founded on the following experiment on a 
variety of bulbs of this nature. On a slate stage, along 
the front of a greenhouse, which was freely ventilatecl 
day and night all the summer, I placed an inch or 
so of sandy soil the whole length, with another inch 
of clean white sand on the top; I had tw'o objects in 
view with this bed, which was about tw'enty inches 
wide, aud tw'enty-four feet long, to keep a damp bottom 
for pots, and to place a lot of obstinate bulbs between 
the pots, among which was one of Gohourghia incarnala. 
The bottom of the bulbs were on the bare slate, and a 
little extra soil placed round them to keep them firm. 
The drainage from the pots kept the soil constantly wet, 
and sometimes, in very hot w'eather, a quantity of water 
was poured in between the pots. 'The roots travelled 
rapidly along the slate, the leaves went off equally 
