August 11. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Hymenocallis Staflesiana. —Named after Mr. Sta- 
I pies, who sent it, and many other novelties, to Air. S. 
; Tate, of Sloane Street. It is the hardiest of all the 
ruinates, and differs from the others only in the relative 
length of the tube of the flower, and by the long leaves 
being much narrower at the bottom. It makes as many 
offsets as a Cobiirgia. A bulb of it, half-a-yard from 
the front wall of the stove, standing before adnata, 
i No. 1, grew for years with such luxuriance as to almost 
overpower the bulbs behind it, the leaves rising two 
feet high, the plant flowering and ripening seeds every 
year. Another bulb of it in a pot, set in a pond, grew 
still more vigorously, indicating the preference of these 
bulbs to water. 
Hymenocali.is distycha and driandri are two 
other varieties of adnata, to be distinguished only by 
botanists by slight marks of which gardeners take no 
account. The truth is, that if any two of these were 
crossed together, the produce would furnish all these 
varieties, and any one may be content who can now 
get a true Hymenocallis Americana in the nurseries; 
in botanic gardens, distycha, adnata, or Staplesiana, 
are the only names by which they are known. 
Hymenocallis rotata. —This is a very old species, of 
which there are two varieties in cultivation, one from 
Florida, and the other from Virginia, where it grows in 
’ deep bogs ; both have the coronet, much wider than is 
usual, with a little green at the bottom, and the edges 
cut into teeth; in short, approaching as near to C'horetis 
glauca, from Texas, as the difference of localities may 
be supposed to admit of, in a genus that ranges from 
Virginia to Buenos Ayres, on the one hand, and on the 
other up the Magdalena, across the great chain into 
Peru, and back again into the valley of Cusco, under 
some guise or other. If rotata will not cross with 
C'horetis, let natural seedlings of both be reared, and 
they will cross, no doubt; then we shall get into Ismene 
by a side wind. In a very excellent work, got up at 
Birmingham, some few years ago, called “ The Flori- 
cultural Cabinet,” this rotata is well figured as a new 
plant called Ismene Knightii; so difficult it is to decide 
when we approach the edges of allied sections of a great 
family like this. The only work in which the true name 
is given, is Loddige’s “Botanical Cabinet,” plate 10. 
“ The Botanical Magazine ” calls it Pancratium rotatum, 
and surely by one or other of these names, it could be 
hunted out, for we cannot do much good in crossing 
without it (see Choretis). 
Hymenocallis Carolinianum is only a name, by 
Catesby, for rotata. Then we have another called Pana- 
mensis, which is the nearest to Harrisiana, and both like 
a little treat to get up their flowers, for they are not 
quite so hardy as those named above ; but Panamensis 
is very sweet, and a great flowerer, and the segments 
into which all of them run from the limb of the flower 
are as long in this as in any species from within the 
tropics, full four inches long, and curving beautifully 
all round the outside of the flower; the misfortune is, 
| that all these half-hardy bulbs have been subjected to a 
stove culture, by nine growers out of ten, because they 
looked so much like the old Pancratiums; the con¬ 
sequence was, that they were soon lost, and gardeners 
got sick of bulbs, aud of all other plants that were not 
encouraged at exhibitions. 
Hymenocallis Skinneriana.— This is the last and 
■ newest one, I believe; but how far it may differ from the 
other Mexican flowers I cannot say, for I never saw it, 
i and I have no description of it by me to see if it belongs 
to the adnate section. 
HYPOXIA. 
This is the next genus in the order of the alphabet; 
but I shall take the liberty to jump over it to-day, to get 
to Ismene, which I have said all along is but a limb of 
61 
Hymenocallis, and it seems a pity to separate so useful 
a limb from the main body, now that I am only speaking 
of the cold extremities, which remind me that speciosa, 
alias fragrans, amccna and Caribosa, are the best pot 
limbs either for pot or crossing purposes. 
ISMENE. 
Nothing could be more to the point than to give the 
name Ismene to this section of Pancratioid plants. The 
name is that of a beautiful woman of Romance, whose 
father, CEdipus, a king’s son, married his own mother, 
in a mistake, neither of them knowing each other. Two 
brothers to Ismene slew each other, and her mother 
committed suicide. The affinity of these with allied 
bulbs was so suspicious to the mind of Dr. Herbert, at 
the time he instituted this genus, that he expected, 
sooner or later, that, at least, some of the members of 
the family should be torn asunder, and come to a tragic 
end, just such a work as we are bent upon this very day. 
The genus is altogether Peruvian; those of them marked 
as natives of Brazil were only garden plants cultivated 
in Buenos Ayres; there is no record of one of them 
being found wild in Brazil. Every one of them, without 
exception, will do better with the same kind of treatment 
as the old Jacoboea lily (Sprelcelia formosissima) than 
any other way; that is to say, to be planted out in front 
of a hothouse in April, and to be taken up about the 
end of October, and kept dry all the winter. Pedun- 
culatum, and more especially Calathinum, will live out- 
of-doors, winter and summer, just like the Belladonnas, 
and flower quite as freely and much earlier; but still, 
they are much improved by occasional dryings and a 
change of soil. The great yellow Peruvian Daffodil, 
Ismene Amancces, does certainly better by being taken 
up every year. None of them like peat or leaf mould, 
but they would live in pure sand for a generation if 
they were well supplied with water during the summer; 
and it is best to put in a potful of sand, and put each 
bulb in the middle of the sand at planting time. 
Another very great peculiarity belonging to them, and to 
Choretis as well, is that their seeds vegetate in ten or 
fifteen days, but never throw up a leaf the first season; 
a fang starts away from the seed, like as from the bulb 
of some kinds of Oxalis, and at the end of this fang a 
bulb will form as large as a wren’s egg, without any sign 
of leaf at all the first season; and that is very likely the 
reason why these beautiful bulbs are not as common as 
the Belladonna; and the next reason for their being so 
scarce may be, that their cultivation has not been treated 
of in popular works since Sweet’s time, and that most 
people turned them into the stove, where they soon 
dwindle and perish. 
Ismene Amancves (The Peruvian Daffodil).—This is 
the oldest aud best known of the genus'; a large, clear, 
yellow flower, the coronet or cup is also yellow, and 
nearly fills the inside of the flower, it has six green 
mid-ribs, and is jagged on the edges, the tube of the 
flower is also green, the leaves sheath at the bottom, 
and form a round column over the bulb. There is a 
beautiful sulphur-coloured cross between it and Gala- 
thina, which is figured in “ The Botanical Piegister,” 
vol. 20, plate 10(55; and in “The Botanical Magazine,” 
| the species is called Pancratium Amancces, vol. 30, plate 
j 1:12-1. It should always grow in the middle of a heap of 
sand, and out-of-doors, and not be planted till the be¬ 
ginning of May, but it will grow in a pot, and even 
force to flower a month earlier. 
Ismene calathina. —The bulb, leaf, and growth, are 
very much like the last, but the plant is stronger; the 
flower and cup are large, and pure white ; the flower is 
full four inches across; the tube is green, and there are 
six greenish stripes in the cup, as in that of Amancces. 
No one knows where it is a native of, but it is more 
hardy and less fastidious about saud than the last. It 
