BEACHYCOMA IBMDIF0L1A. 
43 
is not constant, there being sometimes two years without a drop 
of rain. 
With due attention to these very simple directions, the plant 
may be grown in a bed or border, or in pots or vases. Asa bed 
and border flower, it may be sown in March, April, or May ; and 
thus the period of its flowering may be considerably lengthened 
by succession. When it is thus grown, however, the situation 
must be dry, the underground drainage complete, and the loam 
in which the seeds are immediately sown, light and loose, or 
otherwise the plant will not live. 
If intended for early flowering, in the greenhouse or window, 
or even out of doors, it must be sown in the latter part of the 
season, and protected from the winter frost. For this purpose 
it should be sown in August or September, though it will do with 
later sowing than this. When thus grown in pots, these should 
be placed as near the glass as possible, during the winter 
months ; for, though frost destroys it, it prefers rather a cool 
atmosphere with plenty of air. The seed should be sown in 
48-sized pots ; and the young plants should be thinned out to 
four or five in each pot, in order that they may have room to 
spread, as that is the state in which they make the finest appear¬ 
ance. The reason why they ought to have little heat or moisture 
during the winter months, even while in a state of young growth, 
is to avoid over-stimulating the roots, which would bring on an 
unhealthy growth, and destroy the whole plants. 
If the directions we have given are observed, the plant is well 
worthy of culture, whether sown in the latter part of the season, 
for a greenhouse plant in winter and an early flowerer in the 
spring ; or sown in the spring, so as to flower late in the summer 
or during the autumn. Both these periods may be considerably 
lengthened by sowing successions ; and as the pause between the 
autumnal sowings and the early spring ones may be lessened, if 
not obliterated, the plant may be kept in continual flower, with 
the exception of three or four months in the winter. 
When skilfully grown in a proper situation, this is a handsome 
plant—much more so than Diversifolia, which is inferior in habit, 
with the petals white ; and though it has been eighteen years in 
Britain, it has never been held in much estimation. The eye 
only of Ibridifolia is white—the petals, or rather the marginal 
florets, being purplish blue, of a delicate shape. When the plants 
