90 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ June, 
may appear, yet it is found to be a correct one 
in practice : if the young plants are allowed to 
remain plunged in bottom-heat, after being 
rooted, they are very apt to rot off close to the 
sod.” 
When the plants have rooted nicely into the 
cutting-pots, they are, after being hardened off a 
little, taken to one of those long low span-roofed 
houses which appear to be inseparable from the 
production of market-plants, and kept a little 
close. At the end of July, or early in August, 
as opportunity serves, the plants are shifted in 
48-sized—the blooming—pots, and this is the 
only shift the plants receive. 
There is no mystery about the potting com¬ 
post used. Some good sweet well-decomposed 
turfy loam, leaf-mould, and sand make up the 
soil. This is the regulation compost for a 
market establishment, with some manure added, 
for certain things. 
From the time tlio plants are potted on, to 
that when they are ready for market, they 
are treated to a routine of constant atten¬ 
tion ; and this, combined with as complete a 
uniformity of temperature as possible, makes 
up tho cultural process. The plants are 
freely watered—this is never grudged them 
—and as they approach maturity a little 
liquid cow-manure is occasionally adminis¬ 
tered.’ A dry bottom is considered of 
the first importance, and the stages on which 
the plants stand are so constructed as that the 
water freely passes away. A generous treat¬ 
ment, without any pretence at coddling, is given. 
There is no thought of starvation or a resting 
process to induce the production of the magni¬ 
ficent bracts. “ The plants are never syringed 
overhead, and though near the glass, they are 
never shaded from the sun.” As the days 
shorten, and the air becomes chilly, just suffi¬ 
cient fire-heat is maintained to impart a 
comfortable, but by no means heated or 
close atmosphere. “ Air is plentifully given, 
at the same time, cold draughts of air should 
not play directly on the plants.” The rule 
laid down by Mr. Reeves is to give plenty of 
air, as that intensifies the richness of colour 
and the solidity of the bracts. 
The fitness of this temperate treatment is 
shown when the plants are taken to market or 
sent away to a distance. They bear exposure 
with something approaching impunity, for 
some plants sent at Christmas last to Newcastle- 
on-Tyne, and returned again through some 
informality, appeared little the worse for the 
long journey. 
The white variety of the Poinsettia is but 
little grown for market, but the double form, 
by reason of its being some three weeks or a 
month later, promises to be extensively grown 
when it becomes more plentiful.— Richard 
Dean, Ealing , IF. 
SELAGINELLA VICTORIAS.* 
NE of the most beautiful of all the 
Club-mosses, having the general habit 
and aspect of Selaginellci Wallichii , to 
which it is closely allied, though on comparison 
it is seen to be distinct, especially in the 
branches which are evenly pinnate, like the 
frond of a fern, but instead of diminishing 
gradually to the point, as in S. Wallichii ', the 
branch is here formed of nearly equal-sized 
parallel branclilets, the terminal one being of the 
same size and form as the rest, resembling thus 
an imparipinnate leaf. The plant is evidently 
of scandent habit, like S. Wallichii , the old 
stems becoming somewhat woody at the base, and 
throwing out new shoots from the apex after a 
period of rest, the new shoot growing on as 
before. It has been imported by Mr. Bull 
fi’om the South Sea Islands, and is known in 
herbaria from other Pacific stations, having 
been previously associated with S. Wallichii , 
from which the growing plants are at once 
seen to be distinct. It has a creeping caudex, 
from which the subscandent stem springs up 
at intervals. These stems produce the alter¬ 
nate ovate branches, which are flat and closely 
pinnate, remarkable for their symmetry of 
arrangement. The small ultimate branclilets 
are about an inch in length, terminated by a 
slender quadrangular spikelet, from 1 in. to 1^ 
in. long or more. The colour of the fronds is 
a dark sap-green, the spikelets being some¬ 
what paler. The accompanying figure, which 
scarcely does justice to the elegance of the 
plant, is from Mr. Bull’s Catalogue , in which it 
is this year offered for the first time.—T. 
Moore. 
* S. Victorias: stem scandent, 2-3 ft. or more, continued by 
new terminal growths, regularly branched, becoming bare 
below; branches flat, ovate, very regularly pinnate, not 
descrescent to the apex, but terminating in a branchlet 
similar to the rest; branchlets 3-16th of an inch wide, simple, 
those of the fertile branches about 1 inch long, set about 
l-8th of an inch apart, tho basal ones often forked; leaves 
oblong-falcate, entire, the anterior base cut away, the 
posterior produced; midrib distinct; intermediate leaves 
much smaller, semi-ovate acuminate parallel; spikes slender, 
tetragonal, terminating the branchlets, 1-2 inches long. 
