480 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 22 
there they multiply by seeds and offsets prodigiously, 
as Bailie Nicol Jarvie would say. 
Nerine corusca. —A beautiful, shining, deep pink 
flower, the segments not much waved, butreflexed. This, 
and undulata, ought to have their offsets taken off every 
year, as they produce them so numerously as to hinder 
the old bulb from flowering. 
Nerine curvifolia. —A most beautiful thing, and 
the best in the genus. If people would but grow it, 
instead of the Guernsey Lily, they would have some¬ 
thing worth looking at; dark crimson flowers of great 
substance, shining like glass; the segments roll back, 
but do not wave much ; this is the best to cross from ; 
flowers very freely, and the leaf comes with the flower. 
Nerine flexuosa. —A very pale pink flower, much 
distorted, waved, and curved upwards, with six or seven 
flowers in the umbel. As easy to grow as a Crocus; 
but, like undulata and sarniemis, it cannot bear the least 
confinement. 
Nertne humilis. —This is very near flexuosa in all 
the parts, and in constitution, but the flowers are of a 
deeper colour. No plant is more easy to grow. 
Nerine lucida. —Although eurvifolia has the richest 
coloured flower, this is by far the finest Nerine ever 
introduced. Prince Leopold, who was on intimate terms 
with Dr. Herbert, with whom he corresponded about 
bulbs, after ho was exalted to be King of the Belgians, 
was the first to flower this beautiful bulb, at Claremont, 
in 1820. The flowers are bright pink and white, wav¬ 
ing upwards, 12 to 15 of them forming a large spreading 
umbel; laticoma, as some have called it, was a well- 
conceived name for such a fine furnished head of flowers; 
but lucida, by Burch ell, had the priority. Dr. Burchell 
found this plant near the snow mountains in South 
Africa, between Gattikamma and Akaap, in latitude 28° 
50 f 00" south, and 24° 3' east, 22 miles from Ivloarwater, 
so that it can easily be traced; for I believe it is lost 
long since, through the foolish habit of subjecting such 
bulbs to artificial heat. This bulb is certainly all but 
hardy, and the leaves are often killed down by frost, in 
Africa. 
Nerine pulchella.— This is a slender, well-defined 
species, with pale pink, waved flowers, which are striped 
with red veins, and six or seven of thorn in each umbel 
or head; the leaves are a little glaucous, and the bulb 
is easily known, in a dry state, from its being tinged 
with purple and green. 
Nerine rosea. —This also is a well-marked species, or 
rather a variety of venusta, very nearly related to the 
Guernsey Lily, but the flowers are larger, and of a 
more brilliant rosy-colour. It is the only one of the 
genus that has the leaves flat on the ground. 
Nerine sarniensis (The Guernsey Lily).—It is strange 
that this, the least showy of the genus, except undulata, 
should obtain such notoriety in cultivation, while the 
others are hardly ever sought after. There is not the 
slightest doubt but that both in Holland and Guernsey 
the whole family might be raised to the same dignity 
and importance as the Hyacinth, and by crossing them 
they would run into improved varieties, just as much as 
the Hyacinths do. The Guernsey Lily has baffled us, 
more than the Hyacinth, to flower it yearly in succession 
—the reason seems to be, that we force it into premature 
leal by close confinement while in flower—a practice 
which all the Amaryllises never fail to resent; what they 
all want is a very slow movement at first; a sparing of 
water, till the leaf is nearly full grown, and then an in¬ 
crease of warmth and water, and a constant current of 
fresh air. 
Nerine undulata. —This bulb is a drug in the Cape 
market. I never knew a collection come home without 
it, and one can always make it out, on opening the box, 
without looking at the name, from the clusters of white, 
solt-skinned offsets which crowd round the old bulbs; 
in short, it spawns as freely as a Caithness herring, but 
the worst of it is, that it is hot worth growing at ail for 
its beauty; it has been proved, however, to be the jnost 
useful of the family; in the first place, there is no such 
thing as killing it, and, in the second place, it will cross 
with the others, and render the offspring all but hardy, 
without reducing the size of their flowers in the least. 
A cross between it and eurvifolia, called versicolor, or 
Mitchamice, after Mitcham, in Surrey, has sixteen flowers 
in the umbel; rosy-purple, with the midribs of the seg¬ 
ments red. A beautiful thing, which, if crossed again 
with lucida, would give us one of the most beautiful 
flowers. 
Nerine venusta. —This is the type of the section of 
the Guernsey Lily, and is longer and deeper-coloured 
than it, and is a much better plant, and more desirable, 
from the leaves coming at the same time as the flowers, 
of which there are five or six in the umbel. There is a 
beautiful miniature one called minor, that has never 
been figured or described, making the fourth variety, 
rosea and sarniensis being the other two ; but let lucida, 
eurvifolia, and venusta, be brought together and crossed, 
and let the despised undulata add hardness and numerical 
strength to the offspring, providing lucida is not quite 
so hardy as undulata, and then let the disposition to an 
earlier leaf be encouraged among the seedlings when¬ 
ever it is noticed, until the most delicate tints, from j 
crimson to French-white, are blended on umbels of 1 
from twelve to twenty flowers in each, having, at the 
same time, deep green foliage at least half as high as 
the scape when the flowers are in full beauty, and 
nothing finer can be expected from bulbs until they 
find out how to breed the Hippeasters with Habranthus. 
D. Beaton. 
(To be continued.) 
HARDINESS OF THE WHITE INDIAN 
AZALEA. 
Much has already been said of this tribe of plants in 
our pages. For utility as an ornamental plant, few can 
outshine this fine old Azalea, whether forced into bloom 
at Christmas, coming naturally into bloom in the green¬ 
house in spring, or, by being retarded, ornamenting 
rooms and cool greenhouses in summer. A dozen of 
years ugo, our attention was directed to its comparative 
hardiness. A friend of ours had several huge plants, 
in giant pots and tubs, which had outgrown the winter¬ 
ing space he could afford them, and after rusticating 
several winters in stables, wood-barns, &c., they were 
finally consigned to such shelter as a large deciduous 
tree could give them. Here they survived several 
winters, and bloomed less or more the following summer, 
and I believe now might have survived to this day, and 
constituted, by their large size, an ornament to the 
shrubbery, if, instead of standing in their pots and tubs, 
they had at once been planted out, and received a slight 
protection for the first year or two. Many of our readers 
seem as yet unaware of the greater security enjoyed by 
any plant with its roots secured in the earth, instead of 
being exposed to the sudden alternations of heat and 
cold, dryness and moisture, likely to be the consequence 
of keeping plants in pots. 
For the full elucidation of the hardiness of this plant, 
we are indebted, so far as I am aware, to Mr. Fraser, 
gardener to — Leigh, Esq., of Luton Hoo Park, a place 
which, after years of comparative neglect, is now being 
improved with such princely liberality, that it will far 
outrival what it was in the days of the first Earl of 
Bute, when it had received the finishing touches from 
Capability Brown, assisted by the experience and the 
enthusiasm of Peter Collinson. Some “ither day,” I 
