238 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL 
blished plants, present an object which really deserves its 
name. 
The value of this lovely tribe of plants for flower-gardening 
purposes is estimated so highly, that we find some members of 
the genus in every place possessing but the least claims to 
excellence, and justly do they merit this preference, whether 
founded on individual beauty, or their collective elegance and 
pleasing variety; for such is the intense lustre of the majority, 
that let a species be introduced where it may, it is sure to 
attract admiration, and we strongly recommend their yet further 
adoption as of great assistance in the purposes of summer em¬ 
bellishments ; and the more especially now as they indicate an 
increasing tendency to improve and vary in proportion to the 
care bestowed on them. Their cultivation is of the easiest 
description, the majority requiring merely to be planted in good 
garden soil, where, from their naturally hardy and vigorous cha¬ 
racter, they speedily form considerable masses, and bloom most 
abundantly. There are, however, a few of the finer kinds, such 
as D. Chinense and its varieties, together with D. intermedium , 
azureum , and the double varieties of grandijiorum , that require 
a slight protection, such as that afforded by a cold frame, in 
severe weather, and this more for the purpose of warding off a 
superfluity of moisture than from any inherent inability to 
withstand the cold. The whole of them may be increased by 
division of the stool or root, and the single flowering kinds, by 
means of their seeds. The comparatively tender kinds just 
mentioned should be divided on the approach of winter, and be 
then potted separately in rather small pots filled with light 
fibrous loam, and being placed in a common frame will be 
secure for the following season. This description of loam is 
perhaps the best material in which to preserve nearly all kinds 
of plants through the damp weather of our winter months, as it 
retains about the roots of the plants a proper amount of mois¬ 
ture for a long time, thus preventing the necessity of frequent 
applications, and yet, from its porous texture, water is never 
present in any excess; and further, from the same cause, the 
soil is far less subject to the violent rending, observable in 
closer soils, by the action of frost. 
The following brief summary of the most interesting portion 
of the genus may be useful to those forming collections of 
