THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
170 
I 
JUSE 9. 
when growth begins, and to keep the bulbs, while at 
rest, where the heat and moisture of a stove prevails. 
They would be much safer in a dry, warm cellar, but 
they like as much heat while they are at rest as when 
! they are growing, only to be perfectly dry all the time. 
Rut I shall write a letter about them, as if to a friend 
who knew nothing about them, but who wished very 
much to grow some if he know how ; and I shall go on 
now to describe some of the best wild kinds, and what 
may occur to me about them—then, between the whole, 
if J leave a stone unturned, 1 am free for cross-ques¬ 
tioning, providing always that the questions are short. 
Hippeastrum vittatum. —This is the oldest and the 
best of all the greenhouse species, and it is so hardy 
! that it will live out-of-doors, grow, flower, and seed very 
freely in front of a house, or wall, in the neighbourhood 
of London, with only a covering of coal ashes in winter. 
Dr. Herbert had it so for many years in succession, at 
: Mitcham, in Surrey; and yet it will stand a good 
| forcing heat in the spring, and even live for a few years 
; in the stove altogether, but is very liable to mishaps 
when subjected to such high excitement, ft is a native 
of temperate regions in South Brazil. The (lowers arc 
white, with a double stripe of dull red in the centre of 
each of the six divisions of the flower. There are from 
four to nine flowers on a scape, and it rises from twenty 
to thirty inches, and sometimes to a yard in length 
when the bulb is very strong. It is the mother of 
all the Hippeasters that have white stripes on a red 
or orange ground—a class which is called Johnsonii, 
from a person of that name, who raised the first cross 
in Lancashire, in 1810, between viltata and regium, or 
reginee. 
Hippeastrum vittatom major. —A very great im¬ 
provement on the last, much finer and larger flowers, 
with better leaves; altogether, a very line thing. It 
was first named and described by Dr. Lindley, among 
his earliest contributions to botany, and he has never 
described a finer flower since, except 
Hippeastrum Harrisonianum. — A third form of 
Viltatum, with a little more green at the bottom of the 
tube. As soon as the major variety appeared in culti¬ 
vation, the old Vittatum was soon lost; major is from a 
lower level, and is not nearly so hardy as the original. 
The hardihood of Harrisonianum has not been well 
tested in England, but being a great favourite in the 
gardens about Lima, we may believe it to be only a 
greenhouse plant. It was also named by Dr. Lindley, 
I believe, in the “ Botanical Register.” It is necessary 
to be thus particular, as our present race of gardeners 
have confounded the throe together, and believe in the 
existence of one form of the species, and that form is 
now lost, but it was the best for crossing to get hardier 
offspring. It would be worth introducing it again, and 
it could be met with, probably, in the diamond mine' 
districts. 
Hippeastrum psittacinum, a fine, open spreading 
flower, feathered with green up from the bottom to near 
the edges, where it is margined with bright red; a most 
beautiful, and a very scarce, flower now; several less 
better marked crosses having usurped the name. It is 
nearly or quite as hardy as the old Vittatum, and does 
not produce more than two flowers on a scape. It is a 
common plant, growing in strong red clay, on the slopes 
of the Organ Mountains, next to the head of the Bay of 
Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. 
Hippeastrum Organense. —This is a hardy variety 
of the H. Aulicum, growing up to the summit of the 
Organ Mountains, and, therefore, must be much hardier 
than the last. It produces only two flowers on a scape. 
It is a hotter flower than the old Aulioum, but not quite 
so rich as the third form called Aulioum platypetalum. 
Mr. Gardener sent it home, and I had it from a gentle¬ 
man at Newcastle, and I consider it the most valuable 
of the Aulioum breed on account of its hardihood. The 
other two varieties of Aulioum grow lower down, near 
the coast about Rio, and require stove heat; all of 
them have a green eye, with a fringed or bearded ring, 
or crescent. Dr. Lindley, writing about them in 1826, 
(Bot. Reg.) says, “the whole of these varieties are, in 1 
our judgment, mere sports of nature, in all essential 
points analagous to the variations of a bed of tulips;” ; 
and all that we have learned about them since goes to j 
strengthen this opinion. These are the only greenhouse 
Hippeasters from a state of nature that are worth 
growing ; but seedlings from them, by the pollen of any ■ 
of the stove species, are proved to be nearly as hardy as 
themselves ; such is the case with seedlings of Rhodo¬ 
dendron arhoreum, by a hardier pollen ; and such, also, 
j with all the stove Crinums, which breed with the 
longiflorum of the Cape; hence their value as breeders 
J Hippeastrum rf.gium, the pollen parent of Johnsonii, 
is one of the next hardiest; and the next after it is a 
prolific breed, called 
H. nuLBur.osuM, which grows in the middle latitudes of 
Brazil, where it sports naturally into an endless variety, 
but all agreeing in one point—producing dormant or 
blind offsets round the bulb, which refuse to vegetate 
under cultivation. Rutilum, flulgidum, and ignescens, 
are the three best of the Bulhulosum breed, presenting 
the same orange-scarlet tints as those beautiful Pelar¬ 
goniums called Basilisk, Governor-General, and the like. ; 
Crocatum belongs to this breed. Reticulation is one of 
the very best stove red species; the original species is 
lost now more than twenty years, and its natural place 
of growth is not recorded, but there are many crosses 
from it in the country, and they are of a better and 
higher colour than the parent, but not so conspicuously 
netted or barred on the petals, and not one of them, as 
far as I know, possesses the clear white bottom of the 
wild species; there is a natural variety of it, with a 
white band along the middle of the leaf, and a very 
poor, pale red coloured flower. 
Hippeastrum solandriflorum is a tender stove bulb, 
remarkably large and handsome, and of quite a different 
form from all the rest. The colour is creamy-white, 
faintly striped with red, the flower from eight to ten 
inches long, and with a long narrow tube, as in Lilium 
longiflorum. There are four or five natural forms of 
Solandriflorum, and all of them had names given them,, 
but they are of little use now, as the true species are 
not much cultivated for sale. The best of them is one 
called Conspicuum, a native of Cayenne, requiring strong 
heat; the flower is ten inches long, and differs from the 
species principally in having a crimson stain along the 
midribs of the outer segments (sepals), with the bottom 
of the tube shaded with purplish-red; a most beautiful 
flower, which, when crossed with Psittacinum, gave all 
the streaks, feathering, and shades belonging to the 
genus. This breed, however, seldom made good garden j 
plants until the third or fourth generation ; the first ; 
cross almost always looks shabby, with thin, flimsy 
flowers, but beautifully marked, hence the reason why 
gardeners did not go on improving them as they did 
the scarlet ones, which are now ten times better than | 
the best of the originals, while of the striped and [ 
speckled class we have hardly one, except what lias been j 
done with Johnsonii, which, however, is not of this ! 
breed. The way to get into the true strain of Solandri¬ 
florum is to use the pollen of Conspicuum or Striatum, 
the two best of the breed, on the stigma of Vittatum 
major, or Harrisonii; the offspring of this cross is a 
better white than Solandriflorum, and the red stripes 
are more defined than in either parent, but the flowers 
are thin, from the extreme cross. The first cross with 
| the Shanghae fowl will very likely exhibit the same 
fault; the degreee of inferiority will be according to the 
qualifications of the other side of the cross, on the 
