326 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, February 10,1857. 
easy one to grow that anybody might try it, and very 
little room will do for it; then, to see how it seeds, and 
how easily the seeds are got to grow, nobody will be 
without a Pitcher-plant now who can give the proper 
heat. 
The way to grow the seeds is the most curious of all. 
In the number of Jameson's Journal for April, 1830, 
there is a good account of the germination of Nepenthes 
seeds, from which it was “ concluded,” by Dr. Lindley, 
“ that the long, loose tunic of the seed is intended to act 
first as a buoy to float upon the surface of the water, and 
afterwards as an anchor to keep it fast upon the mud, 
until it can have struck root.” This ingenious conclusion 
is not borne out by facts from the cultivator. The seeds 
are not unlike those of the Bornean Rhododendrons, 
whose foliaceous appendages agree with the “ loose 
tunic ” of Nepenthes. The similarity suggested the same 
mode of treatment as is given to the seeds of tree Rho¬ 
dodendrons, and the result shows the practical “conclu¬ 
sion ” to have been the right one; but anybody who 
can grow Rhododendrons from seeds in strong heat 
cannot do better than get an ampullacea Pitcher-plant, 
seed it, and draw his own conclusion, that it would be 
a triumph of skill to have a hundred seedlings of it for 
one’s self. ' 
But about the Ansectochilids, I never saw such a 
sweep in all my days. They propagate them as fast as a 
March hare; and some of the kinds are down one-third 
in price already on that account. There are hundreds 
of them, and the secret, like all extraordinary things, is 
very simple when you know it. Just cut a plant, and 
all parts of a plant, as they cut the potatoes in Ireland 
for “ seed,” and every piece will grow; but without an 
eye no piece, however big, will grow “ if it was ever so ” 
well attended to. There was one fine new dark velvety¬ 
leaved kind, with gold veins, not yet named ; some hun¬ 
dreds of setaceus, and the different varieties of it; but 
such new kinds as Lowii, Lobbii, and three or four 
others are not large ’enough yet to be cut up like 
potatoes, consequently they are scarce yet. There are 
many other secrets to be told out of this private sanctum, 
hut 1 should not finish till Midsummer if I were to tell 
all as I go along 
Stephanotis House.— This was the low, long, span- 
roofed propagating house in which the Ipomcea Bear'd 
first bloomed in Europe ; and the finest bloom I ever yet 
saw on it was in this very house, when we counted 4,643 
blooms fully open one forenoon. The next best show of 
it 1 had myself in the conservatory at Shrubland Park, 
where the plant was much more at home than in a 
stove, as, unless a shoot actually touched the pent-roof 
glass, it never had a red spider on it, though the house 
was not syringed after the end of June. Well, both 
sides of the roof are now covered with Stephanotis from 
end to end in horizontal lengths. It flowers better and 
much longer that way than when it is trained up like a 
Vine; but I have seen it very good from a narrow 
back border, up the back wall and down the rafters, as 
the Vines were at Holly Mount, Malvern, when Princess 
Victoria “ lived ” at Holly Mount, which Vines then 
bore as fine Grapes and crops as ever were seen. 
The house is now devoted to the young stock of the 
most-called-for stove plants, and I was particularly well 
pleased with the arrangement, as it exemplifies a system 
which I always recommend for the stock of bedding 
plants, which is to have every kind kept together in 
one place, and then you know at once, if the plant you 
want is not to be found in its proper place, it is not on 
the establishment. The house, sixty feet long, is 
divided down the centre by a path, with a bed on either 
side, and the different kinds are set together in rows 
across these beds, with a row of some more conspicuous 
kind to divide one kind from another, thus :—Several 
| >ows of Statice latifolia, arborea, Holdfordi, and macro- 
phylla, a very fine kind; then a row of S. imbricata, a 
very distinct kind, and rather scarce, divides them from as 
many rows of Stephanotis floribunda, from English saved 
seeds ; then Gardenias of sorts; then Thyrsacanthus ru- 
tilansfor which there is a greater demand; then Francis- 
ceasof sorts; Crotons ditto; Dracaenas,Ixoras, Medinillas, 
iEschynanthuses, Marantas, Aphelandras, Cleroden- 
drums, Jasminums, Peutlandias, Hibiscuses, Pentas, Jus- 
ticias, Rondeletias,newTecomas, Conoclinums, Pleromas, 
Ropalas, Meyenias,Eucharis Amazonica and grandiflora, 
the new white splendid bulbs, Tabernsemontanas, Vincas, 
Centradenias, Ardisias, Graptophyllum (Croton pictum), 
Euphorbia Jacquinifolia, and others, all in large beds, 
and divided with such kinds as Coleus Blumei and 
pectinata, Draccena nobilis and terminalis, Dumbcancs, 
and variegated Crotons; and as “storers,” such plants as 
Ropala Skinneri, large Thyrsacanthus, Pandanus varie- 
gatus, Eucharis in bloom, Statice macrophylla, and lots 
of Amherstia nobilis, lately imported, and all doing well; 
and at the farthest sides, on shelves over the hot-water 
pipes, collections of Begonias, Gesneriads, Impatiens, 
including Jerdonise, and other soft stove stock of similar 
natures, as clean and fresh as a new pin, and all of 
them in constant demand. 
Specimen Stove House. —There is a grand display in 
this house, which is a span-roofed house, twenty feet 
wide, and forty feet long, with a flat stage down the 
centre, and a side stage all round, the plants being all 
placed as for “effect” at a public show. Here I noted 
the following plants as most conspicuous:— Maranta 
vittata, four feet high ; Croton variegatum and pictum, 
very fine; Medinilla magnifica, ditto ; variegated Anassa, 
or Pine Apple, one of which was in fruit; Aralia 
pulchra, longifolia, Japonica, andpapyrifera; Hippomane 
spinosa, with leaves eighteen inches long, and five 
broad, spined like a Berberis; Ropala Jonghi, another 
new kind from M. de Jongh’s collector in Brazil: 
it has the broadest leaves of all we know of in that 
genus. Begonia tomentosa, with leaves fifteen inches 
by twelve inches; Theophrastus of sorts; Imatophyllum 
miniatum, the beautiful new bulb from South Africa, so 
called by Mr. Backhouse, of York ; Ficus Sieboldi, 
with leaves twelve by fifteen inches, very fine; Atro- 
carpus rigida and incisa; Ixoras, very large; Pavetta 
Borbonica, ditto; a strong Billbergia gigantea, with 
leaves five feet long; Nidularium fulgens; lots of the 
new Begonia picta; Tradescantia odoratissima, with 
splendid purple leaves. The roof is clothed with such 
climbers as Hoya imperialis, Allamandas, Combretum 
purpureum, Ipomcea Horsfallice, Bignonia venusta, and a 
beautiful new Marcgravia clinging up to the wall like 
Ivy, but very different in the leaf. 
Specimen Azalea House. —This house is fifty-five 
feet long and twenty-two feet wide, with a sloping stage 
to the back wall, and is brimful of specimen plants of 
all the best kinds of the Chinese breed of Azaleas. The 
front stage was full of smaller plants of the same kinds. 
The average size of the large plants is four feet by four 
feet, and every one of them is “set” for a magnificent 
bloom; but to name them would only be to write out a 
complete catalogue. 
Camellias. —The old span-roofed Orchid house, fifty- 
five feet by fifteen, and a north house, fifty-five feet by 
sixteen, are full of Camellias, to which the same remarks 
as those on the Azaleas may suffice till the two families 
are in bloom, and then ! 
New Holland House. —A span, fifty feet long by 
eighteen feet wide, and all the plants set for “ effect ” 
most effectually. What or which is really the best plant 
from New Holland I will just tell you—a plant from Old 
Holland, or from somewhere over the Dutch water. It 
is a seedling improvement on a New Holland Acacia, 
tho A. longifolia magnifica. It would be hard to know 
what a student of Cicero would say to that name; but, 
