478 
THE COTTAGE GAEHENEE. 
March 24. 
as those of Valotta, but wider in the mouth ;—then, 
and not till then, we shall have florists’ flowers that 
will drive all the Tulips back to Holland and Dutch 
water. 
Qastronema clavatum is a very small bulb, from the 
eastern parts of the Cape territory. It goes to rest all 
the winter, begins to grow late in March, and flowers 
at tlie end of summer; but not being mucb bigger tliari 
a Crocus bulb, and being very scarce, it should be 
grown in a pot in the best yellow loam, very much 
reduced with the best silver sand; a deep pot, four 
inclies across, would bo large enough to flower five of 
these pretty bulbs; the drainage must be perfect, and 
once in five years would bo enough to change the soil. 
The leaf is not unlike a crocus leaf, of a milky-green 
colour; the flower scape is from six to eight inches liigb 
with one, sometimes two, flowers, nodding a little to one 
side ; it is not much bigger than the flower of a large 
white Crocus, but diiferently shaped, and pure white, 
with six crimson bands, one up the middle of each divi¬ 
sion of the flower; the top part of the flower spreads 
out wide open. Dr. Burchell’s bulbs of it flowered in 
. the open border, but the wet killed them in winter. 
Oastronema coccineuji.—I f one bad the face to as¬ 
sert, twenty year’s ago, that anything new, in the way of 
bulbs, could yet be discovered in our Capo Colony, bo 
would bo botanised out of the country. Masson, Eorbes, 
Eurchell, and Howie, and a host of 2 )rivatc searchers 
besides, bad so scoured the country from one end to the 
other, that nothing worth looking at were left behind, 
as the story went. “ But stop a wee ! ” Since I began 
writing this page, a drawing of a Chandelier bulb 
(Bntnsvigia) was set before me, perhaps the finest of 
that section, and I know it has never yet been described. 
In 18-10, I bad three bulbs from above Algoa Bay, and 
-Dr. Herbert, to whom 1 sent two of them, could not 
even guess what genus they belonged to. Much about 
the same time, Mr. Backhouse, of York, had one of the 
handsomest of all the Tritonias (aurea), and here is an¬ 
other of his recent introductions, one of the very ]n’et- 
tiest bulbs in all Africa, south or north; and the pro¬ 
bability is, that scores, just as handsome, are yet to be 
had there. There was a capital book iniblished on 
“The Genera of South African Plants” in Cape Town, 
in 1838, by W. H. Harvey, Esq.; 100 kinds of Amaryl- 
lids and 300 Irids are described in this book, and 8,500 
sjiecies of Cape plants in the whole. According to the 
review of it which I have read, this book would assist in 
getting hold of very good things yet from the Cape. But 
let us hear about our newest Amaryllid from hence, 
Gastroneina coccineum. This very handsome species is 
four times as large in all the parts as the last, hut with 
! only one flower on a scape, which is four or five inches 
; high, hollow, and of a milky-green colour. The flower 
I is stalkless on the top of this scape, with a long greenish 
I tube, which is curved from the pod; the tliroat expands 
I wide, and is of a deep rose colour, and with six crimson 
; lines running down fl-om the bottom of the segments on 
. the outside; and opposite these, in the inside of the 
throat, are six white bands, and each of these wliito 
bands has a crimson line up tbe centre. The segments, 
i or six divisions, of the flower spread wide open, and turn 
back a little, as if on purpose to let you see the lovely 
markings below. These divisions are of one colour, deep 
rose, tlius forming altogether one of the richest of all our 
j new bulbs, and one which ought to bo in every collec- 
I tion, or selection, of bulbs in the tliree kingdoms and in 
! the colonies thereto belonging. It is as easy to grow as 
I Valotta, with nothing but loam and sand. As all these 
I Cape Amaryllids delight in friable loam of different tex¬ 
tures, according to the size of the bulbs, and as they do 
not like to be disturbed from jiot to pot, nor to have the 
same soil changed for years together, it seems madness 
to add peat or leaf mould for them, as is done in some 
nurseries; the effect of which is, that after the first year 
or two the peat gets rotten and sour, and the leaf mould 
turns to a black slimy mass; the roots feel the bad 
effects of this; they begin to canker, the leaves get more 
and more sickly, the bottoms of them inside the bulb 
die off without riiiening, and bring a mortal disease to 
the very heart of the system ; and if another growth is | 
made, the leaves are all spotted and blotched; and of ; 
all the hopeless things which we attempt to })ut right, ‘ 
tliis is the most desperate and hopeless. i 
GEISSOIIT-IIZA. j 
Geissorhiza, or Tile-root.—These arc Cape Irids. In i 
the “ shipping list” for May Ifl-Ki, it will be seen that 
H. M. ship Winchester arrived in England from the 
Cape of Good Hope; and by that good ship 1 received 
one of the finest assortments of bulbs that ever was made 
up there, or anywhere else, a list of which now lies 
before me, or rather is ])asted in my Alhinn —a cmrious 
old sort of book, which has served me for years to hold 
things which were too heavy for my brains. There is a 
memorandum in this list, saying that kir. J. C. I.acy, 
apothecary, Port Elizabeth, Algoa Bay, South Africa, 
was then agent for a wanderer in those parts, from 
whom seed-roots, bulbs, and 37 kinds of Znmias, could 
be bad on very low terms, for cash. Among my bulbs 
were a largo number of s])ecies, or rather kinds, for there 
is not a man on earth who can tell a species from a 
variety, in nine-tenths of the generality of Capo bulbs. 
Tlicy are so numerous, and run into each other so much, 
that, as Mr. Havey said in his book on Cape plants, 
when they all open after a shower, the country looks as 
if there bad been a “ shower of butterflies.” 
Geissorhiza skcunda, if it w'ould flower all the sum¬ 
mer, would make the prettiest sky-blue bed of all the 
jilants in creation—but it only blossoms for three weeks 
at the end of spring, and is too small to be trusted out 
of a pot, yet it is a very hardy greenhouse or frame bulb. 
Geissorhiza vaginata and obtdsata, I tbiuk, are the 
two best kinds, at least they are equally handsome to 
any in the genus; Obtnsata is a very handsome little 
bulb, with rich cream-coloured flow'ers, which are 
streaked with pink on the outside; and Vaginata is 
akin to it, but very different in the flower, which is of 
three colours—tbe bottom is a rich dark jnu’ple, the 
middle a soft yellow, and the tops of the segments, or 
lobes of the flower, are marked with a large dark blotch. 
There are also Itochea, or Laroelica, and setacca with 
exdsa, and the first three named used to be common in 
the seed-shops some years since. 
They are all best managed in pots, and a number 18 pot 
will flower five of the largest roots, and seven of the 
smaller ones. The best soil for them is good jieat, and 
one-third sand, and they should be potted at the end of 
September, and be treated like Ixias all the w’inter; 
they flower from the middle of April to the end of May, 
and soon die down after that—as the Tulips do. 
GELASTNE AZUEEA. * 
This is quite a new genus of South American bulbs, 
of which several kinds have been seen, but not brouglit . 
over alive. Mr. Tweedie discovered the jiresent sjiecies 
“ in stony places near Eio Grande,” and it is as hardy 
as a Oladiohts, and with small blue flowers, and the 
leaves keej) on almost all the year round; very sandy 
loam, in a border with the difl'erent sjiecies of Zephijr- i 
anthes, is the right place for it. j 
GETTIYLLIS. ; 
With the exception of Caiyolgza, the different kinds ; 
of Gethgllis are the smallest of all bulbs, belonging to 
the order of Amaryllids, and they are all from the Cape. 
Giliaris, Afra, and spiralis, arc common enough at the ^ 
Cape, and generally come in a collection from the Cajie 
