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GLORIOSA SUPERBA. 
GLORIOSA SUPERBA. 
_ # 
This curious and truly splendid plant is just now obtaining 
the attention it so well deserves at the hands of all who would be 
considered accomplished growers of plants. It is one which, if 
properly cultivated, must ever attract much notice, and as there 
is some little tact or skill required to have it in good order, it is 
precisely the kind of thing that should be adopted by those who 
are in the habit of exhibiting their productions. For the benefit 
of those not acquainted with the plant, and I am sorry to say 
there are a great number even of gardeners to whom it is but 
little known, I will attempt a brief description in popular terms : 
the plant is a native of the East Indies, whence it was originally 
introduced so far back as 1690, but from the difficulty of in¬ 
creasing it, and perhaps want of skill in its management in those 
early days, it remained an extremely scarce plant till within a 
comparatively few years; it has a tuberose root, irregular in 
form, covered with a pale brown skin, like that of the potato, 
and also like that root, this has eyes from whence the stalks 
issue ; they are usually collected at one end as is the case with 
the well-known ash-leaf kidney potato, and on the preservation 
of this portion of the tuber particularly depends the existence 
of the plant. I have known it survive the complete decay of 
other portions, but if once these incipient buds are injured it is 
seldom they recover. From the eyes just described, the stem of 
the plant springs ; it is succulent, and of a scandent habit, bear¬ 
ing, at rather distant intervals, long, narrow, pale green leaves, 
resembling those of some species of lilies ; when this stem has 
advanced from five to ten feet in length, it pushes forth lateral 
branches, which are numerous in proportion to the strength of 
the main stem, and upon them are borne other leaves, having a 
cirrhiferous point or tendril by which the plant seeks to support 
itself: from the axils of these leaves the flowers proceed. The 
footstalk is from three to four inches long, dependent towards 
the end; the petals as they expand turn upwards and become 
wavy or twisted; they are about three inches long, and, in fine 
flowers, nearly half as much in width, but being spirally curled 
they do not look so wide; at first they are yellowish-green, but as 
