1880. ] 
EARLY TURNIPS.—CLEMATIS COCCINEA. 
115 
Another correspondent, J. 0.,” finds the 
best way to manage Lachenalia tricolor is to 
grow it in baskets. These baskets are made 
up about October, placing the bulbs in layers 
round the outside, using a little sphagnum to 
keep in the soil; they are hung in a fern- 
house for the winter, where they make foliage 
2 feet long; the flower-spikes begin to show 
early in the year, and about March, with the 
long spotted foliage hanging down, and the 
flowers pointing upwards, they look very grace¬ 
ful. Some quite 3 feet through have become 
a mass of bloom. When the flowering is over 
they are placed under the greenhouse stage, 
watered for a few weeks, and then allowed to 
become quite dry, when they are shaken out, 
and from four to sis good bulbs are obtained 
from one, besides a quantity of small ones.— 
T. Moore. 
EARLY TURNIPS. 
HERE is a great difficulty in getting 
the old and new turnips to shake 
hands, so to speak. The old ones are 
» out of season, generally, before one can get 
the new ones in. These esculents are in con¬ 
siderable demand here, and are generally asked 
for before I can get them ready. This spring 
I thought I would sow across the kitchen 
garden a few drills of the various sorts, in 
order to prove which was the earliest, and by 
far my first favourite is Early Purple-top 
Munich, for, notwithstanding the season being 
backward, I had nice roots by the middle of 
May. The top is small, and altogether differ¬ 
ent from anything of the kind I have pre¬ 
viously grown. 
I also sowed the Early Paris Market, a sin¬ 
gularly shaped kind, more like an intermediate 
carrot with white flesh and sweet, but it ran to 
seed directly. The Early Stone served me the 
same. The Early Six-weeks was better, but two 
weeks behind the Munich. The Early Ameri¬ 
can Strapleaf, Veitch’s Purple-top, and Orange 
Jelly I can strongly recommend for summer 
and autumn sowing, but they require rather 
longer time to come in. Now, will any one tell 
me why the British public are so prejudiced 
against the last-named variety ? Its colour 
is objected to in the dindng-room, but surely 
that is a great mistake, for it is not so insipid- 
looking as the white varieties, and for winter 
use it has no equal.—J. Rust, Eridge Castle. 
CLEMATIS COCCINEA. 
)E have to thank Mr. G. Jackman, of 
Woking, for the specimen of this in¬ 
teresting Clematis represented in the 
accompanying woodcut. The attention of 
European cultivators was first directed to this 
Clematis coccinea. 
plant by a coloured figure which appeared in 
the Reeve IlorUcole for 1848, under the name 
of C. Pitcheri , a dull purple-flowered species, 
with which it was for some time confounded. 
Further research, however, showed that this 
scarlet-flowered species was a distinct plant, to 
which Dr. Engelmann had given the name of 
i 2 
