STREPTOCARPUS 
These beautiful plants should be grown by 
people who like bloom all the year around, 
yet have little time to devote to their care. 
The plants are gay with their strap-like fol- 
iage and flower of many colors, held well 
above the foliage, on long slender stems. 
When buying seeds by a mixture, will con- 
tain reds, purples, pinks, orchid and many 
with a maroon strip coming from the throat 
out to the petal. Others may have yellow 
stripes. The blooms will last about 3 weeks 
if not too many on one stem. The flowers 
are large and when over two, the stems will 
have difficulty in holding them up. Cut 
them for table decoration when they wil? 
last for at least two weeks. 
The seeds are very small and should be 
started the same as with Gloxinias. 
I have found that they respond well to my 
way of starting all Gesnariads by using a 
covered plastic box. I put a little of my 
potting soil in the bottom, covering it with 
course vermiculite and using a nutrient to 
wet it down; let stand for 1 or 2 hours, then 
drain well and sprinkle the seeds and cover 
the box. Keep in a warm place and put 
under your lights. I have raised mine under 
the CX-General Electric lamps; this was first 
mentioned by Plantsmith in articles; within 
a short time little green specks will appear, 
remove the cover and set under fluorescent 
lights, if you have them or bright day- 
lights, never let them dry out. 
Here is where many people have trouble 
for they find one leaf and will wait for 
another before transplanting. They should 
be transplanted as soon as this one leaf is 
large enough to handle. Just like your Glox- 
inias, the one leaf will keep growing and it 
may be several weeks before the second leaf 
appears. Then after waiting awhile the 
others begin to grow. When yon have about 
five leaves you can look into the heart of 
the plant for little green balls. These are 
your buds; they will be held tight in the heart 
of the plant until you could screem, almost 
over night they will shoot up and the littlé 
balls will begin to open and turn into long 
shaped buds, may be one or up to five; a 
few days they will show color. The flower 
developes slowly and I have never been able 
to hasten it. 
Streptocarpus are heavy feeders with fibr- 
ous roots making it necessary for them to 
have a loose rich soil; feed often and repot 
promptly. 
For me, the little one-leaf plants go into 
2-inch pots when the second leaf appears; 
they should be ready for their 3-inch pots; 
the ones I have now a year old are in 7-inch 
pots. This may not be necessary but I want 
to keep them blooming. My reward has 
been almost constant bloom. 
The soil mixture I am using for all my 
plants has a peat moss base instead of soil 
because I am lazy or living in a northern 
state, it is impossible to get good soil in the 
winter months if I run short. 
By M. C. Cogswell, N. Y. 
= ™ —— 
Using F luorescent Lights 
Regarding the results I have had with 
fluorescent lights in my plant room, have 
been far from satisfied with them. 
The lights were installed by an electrical 
engineer according to light meters so that 
according to engineering standards they were 
correctly installed. 
The racks were two tier high with two 
frames of lights and reflectors over each 
bench; these can be raised and lowered as 
required. The reflectors were made of a 
heavy aluminum foil and curved down at 
the sides to prevent escape of light. 
The Gloxinias were only fair; the stocks 
inclined to grow tall and reach into the 
lights and the stems were not sturdy. 
The following plants were tried with these 
results: 
Streptocarpus — grew one leaf; one is still 
under lights after one year and put in a 
window, have been in bloom for seven 
months and have 10 leaves. 
Chirita — Died. 
Gloxinia perennis — grew only four leaves 
until removed to the window sill where they 
bloomed. 
Smithianthas — grew many from seeds and 
kept 20 under the lights and 20 in the window 
where they received all the afternoon sun. 
Those under lights are standing still while 
those in the window are all in bloom. 
Epescias— The ones under the lights 
have grown very slowly; those in day light 
are in bloom. 
Hoya — under lights, had two leaves but 
on removing to day-light two months ago 
is now 30” tall. 
Gloxinia cardinalis—in pots under lights 
they are about 5” tall with no buds; those 
in flats out in the lath house are all in bloom. 
These are the plants I have tried in the 
years I have been using lights and data kept 
on them. This summer we had a lath-house 
built and the results were so startling compar- 
ed to the lights that we are having a green- 
house built. 
The plants in the lath-house are all about 
3-4 inches tall and in bloom or bud while 
those under lights are taller, with no buds, 
both from the same seed and planted at the 
same time. 
I have been using a CX light made by the 
General Electric Co. and find they start my 
seeds much faster but make the small plants 
grow too fast. Strange as it may seem the 
Epescias like this light. I have had both 
plants and cuttings by mail and badly broken 
and by using lights have found every piece 
has rooted and the color seems much im- 
proved. A Chocolate Soldier has its pink 
markings much brighter. It may be, of 
course, that the green is deeper and that 
shows up the faint pink spots. 
The seedlings I remove as soon as they 
start to grow tall and put them under the 
other lights. The Company warned me 
about leaf blemish but having not found any 
of that in nearly 2,000 seedlings. 
In checking around the different research 
stations I find they are not too sold on 
growing plants under lights, except for cut- 
tings in Warden cases, but they all point out 
to me the mistakes I had made, viz., using 
day-light bulbs only and I should have been 
using white and day-light tubes or white and 
blue tubes. Also my temperatures were a- 
way off; should be between 60-68 degrees 
F. with good ventilation. 
Bye VEG COGSWELLA NEY. 
PRONUNCIATION OF PLANT NAMES 
Those who haye any reason to work on 
plant names, often wonder if the mix-up in 
them will ever be straighten out. Books on 
botanical subjects become obsolete as soon 
as they are published, so far as the names are 
concerned and a book published in Europe 
will have different botanical names than 
books published in the U. S. A. 
In the seed listings, both in the Magazine 
and Seed Catalog, we intend following 
Hortus II with its latest corrections which 
Mr. Lawrence, kindly sends us from time to 
time; any changes that are made in Hortus 
can be reasonably expected to be final. 
As to pronounciation, this is more of a 
problem, than the correct name, and in 4or 
5 books on pronounciation, each one is diff- 
erent, in fact one writer goes so far as to 
say that anyway you say it is correct! We 
391 
do not take this lazy point of view. And 
again, one English writer made a_ rather 
sarcastis remark on our method, saying that 
one requiring this method hardly needs to 
know how to pronounce the name! On 
the other hand, why go to all the effort to 
have ‘a’ as in ‘all’ and ‘a’ as in ‘awful’, etc., 
when our method is so much more simple 
asd to the point—how to speak the word 
quickly. By the way, it is not our point 
that no mistakes are made and when a reader 
notes one, why not say so? It’s always ap- 
preciated. 
This problem is not a new or resent one; 
hundreds of years ago it was the same. Take 
the name “Cyclamen”. Here in thhe U.S.A. 
it is always spoken of as SYKE-clay-men 
but in all the books on pronunciation it is 
down as, SIK-lam-en; this is also a little 
difficult to say. 
_ An old poem on this may be of interest; 
it goes as follows: 
Some people use it now and then, 
As if ‘twere written ‘“‘Sickly-men”’, 
But as it comes from “kuklos’”, Greek, 
Why not “kick-laymen”, so to speak? 
The gardener, with his ready wit, 
Upon another mode has hit; 
He’s terse and brief—long names dislikes, 
And so he renders it as “Sykes”, 
Growing Delphiniums 
I have the best Delphinium seedlings in 
this locality and I would like to tell you 
how it was done. 
After I had mailed my order for the seed 
I got my seed flats ready (coffee cans) and 
as soon as the seed came they were promptly 
planted and then set in an open frame, pro- 
tected only from rodent harm. This was in 
February and March when the temperature 
was below freezing. The first seedlings ta 
appear were D. cardinalis, followed by all 
of the others. I believe every single seed 
has produced a_ plant. > 
I had hoped that with good luck, I might 
get enough plants to make a clump of 10-12 
plants out of the four packets but from the 
cardinalis packet I have 90 plants after thin- 
ning and nearly as many from the other 
packets; they are now growing like weeds. 
By Manuel Calvo, Maryland 
NOTE: Mr. Calvo usually has good success 
with the plants he grows and his method 
or spring sowing is ideal. Delphinium seed 
should always be sown promptly upon arriv- 
al and if not the seed should be stored in the 
refrigerator until sown. Mr. Guldemond, 
who writes in this issue on perennials, plants 
Delphinium by the pounds and his method 
is to sow in flats which are set on top of 
each other, each flat set cross-ways for venti- 
lation and placed in a shed, where they do 
not get the direct sun; of course when germ- 
ination starts they are immediately removed 
so that air circulation in the fiat room will 
prevent rot and damping-off; air that stands 
still, especially when damp and warm, 
will bring on much trouble. Mr. Calvo’s 
open-frame supplied an ideal place besides 
producing a strong hardy seedling that wilf 
give a sturdy growth. Mentioning Mr. Gold- 
emond’s planting aboyve—his plantings are 
in August, of course. 
IMPERMEABLE SEED COATS 
If seed fails to germinate due to imperme- 
able seed coats, it can be determined if some 
of the seed is placed in water to see lf It 
swells. If it does not swell, indicating that 
the seed-coat is impermeable, filing the seed, 
where only a small amount is had, will us- 
ually overcome the trouble. 
ASPARAGUS SPRENGERI 
yariety VARIEGATUS 
The clododes are variegated green and 
cream; do not feed too much or the plant 
may be pale yellowish green. Have you 
noticed that quite a few species of Asparagus 
are listed in thhe Catalog? 
