107 
ON THE CULTURE OF GARDENIA. 
The Gardenia was so named by Ellis in honour of his friend 
and correspondent, A. Garden, m.d., of Charleston, in South 
Carolina; it is a very beautiful genus, and most of the species 
are highly odoriferous. 
G. Radicans is a well-known and very favorite greenhouse 
shrub; it is a native of China, and was first grown in England 
in the year 1804. As a greenhouse plant it has scarcely a com¬ 
peer in fragrance or beauty ; in its native country, too, it is very 
highly prized. The Japanese, as Thunberg relates, form hedges 
of it, and ornament their houses and the walks of the gardens 
with it and other species of Gardenia. This is one of the very 
limited class of plants suitable for window culture, and there 
are only three of this genus which bear the character sufficient 
to warrant the prenomen : these are G. Radicans, G. Thunbergia, 
and G. Rothmannia, the remaining species are all properly 
stove plants. A difficulty is often experienced in the blooming 
of these plants, more especially the greenhouse kinds; sometimes 
the plants do not produce any flower-buds at all, and others 
may bring a sufficiency of buds; but they as often fall prema¬ 
turely, much to the disappointment of the fair owners, for this 
genus is a most decided favorite of the ladies. 
It may be useful to endeavour to trace the cause of this pre¬ 
mature fall of the flower-buds, as the knowledge of the true 
cause of a failure is the first and most essential step towards the 
application of a remedy ; these plants, when in a state of nature, 
inhabit a portion of the globe where the seasonal changes are 
very great, and consequently the seasonal growth of plants 
equally marked. Indeed, so severe are the winters in some parts 
of the eastern world, and the effect of this tending to render 
the plants constitutionally robust, that was it not for the greater 
humidity of our climate, we might be justified in the expectation 
of acclimatizing all the plants of those countries. The effect 
of this has been already explained in the Florist s Journal, there¬ 
fore what is now required consists chiefly in a practical view of 
