THE GENUS PLUMBAGO. 
123 
autumn. The production of flowers should not be allowed in 
the first year, but, after keeping them nearly dormant on a light 
shelf in the stove through the winter, they had better be cut 
down, repotted, and plunged into heat early in the following 
spring; and when the stems are three or four times multiplied, 
both in number and strength, they may be permitted to bloom. 
Their appearance in this condition is very pleasing, and of course 
their beauty increases with their size, so long as they can be 
maintained in health, after which it is better to relinquish the 
old ones, and begin again with new plants. 
P. mexicana and zeylanica may be rather more easily culti¬ 
vated under the same treatment. They have each white flowers, 
and zeylanica is very pretty, closely resembling capensis in its 
manner of growth and flowering. P. scandens and occidentalis, 
sometimes falsely called zeylanica , are stove-climbers of limited 
range, suitable for large trellises, in pots, or the bottoms of pillars 
in the house; they also have white flowers, and are not difficult 
in their management. The best mode of treating the climbing 
species is to shift them annually, if grown in pots, as soon as 
they begin to grow, and through the summer to bend the stems 
spirally round their support, which restricts their rambling in 
proportion as the coils are more or less erect; and, in the autumn, 
after the flowering is over, the branches may be cut closely in, 
and the plants kept dormant till the next season. There is an¬ 
other stove species, common in South America, called rhornbi- 
folia , an annual, with blue flowers. It succeeds with the treat¬ 
ment of Balsams and such things, but is scarcely worth the 
trouble of cultivating. The hardy species are lapathifolia and 
micrantha , with white flowers, and europcea , with blossoms of a 
cerulean tint. They are pretty, though not striking, but as they 
flower freely through the greater part of the summer, are worthy 
a place among hardy plants. They make the best appearance in 
peat beds. 
The new species with which we illustrate the genus (P. Lar- 
pentce) belongs to the Indian group ; it is a native of China, 
where it was originally discovered by Mr. Fortune, when col¬ 
lecting the rare plants of that empire for the Horticultural 
Society of London, 'Jhe ruined ramparts of Shangai is the 
habitat given, and the appearance of the plant, even in so un- 
