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The Country Gentleman's Magazine

261

PETUNIA OR VERBENA TRELLIS.

LANT trellises are often in demand, and more particularly by villa gardeners. We have named this one engraved, see fig., a Petunia or Verbena Trellis, not because it will suit no other kind of plant, but because of so many of these plants being grown by our constituents. This trellis is comparatively small, only fit for such climbing plants as we have named above, that grow in pots of from 6 to 8 inches in diameter. It is large enough, however, for the resources of many who wish to have "a little of everything" in

their limited space. Although we have

to rest upon.

named this trellis as suitable for Verbenas, we prefer the flat style of growing these plants —that is, tieing the branches down to a table trellis. By so doing the flower umbels rise up in mass clear above the foliage, having the latter as a soft green cushion, as it were, On the other hand, by training them up this flat trellis, and keeping the front sunwards, the flowers all come frontwards, and, when well managed, make a pretty enough object. This form of trellis is undoubtedly the best of all for training Petunias. When these plants are well-grown they make excellent objects for greenhouse decoration. Grown in a moist mild atmosphere, with unlimited ventilation during good weather, the plants will remain in healthy condition, and send out flowers regularly disposed all over

the face of the trellis. If the tints selected a be showy, nothing will give a brighter, smarter aspect than a full trellised Petunia. Let villa gardeners all adopt this style. It would have been better to begin in time, but even yet with good healthy plants to draw upon, trellis them after this fashion, and grow them as near the glass as you possibly can. Some, indeed, for competition purposes, grow them in hot-bed frames somewhat cooled

Petunia or Verbena Trellis.

down, laying the plants on their back, and watering them the best way come-at-able. Then, after pinching any odd flower off during July and August, they allow the full quantity to expand in the show month of September, bringing the plants to the greenhouse to bloom out. Such is the modus operandi of such as possess the best grown and flowered specimens of these eligible summer decorative in-door plants.

NEW AND RARE PLANTS.

CYPRIPEDIUM FAIRIEANUM.

LA ADIES' Slippers are well-known and greatly admired plants. No matter whether the amateur grows Orchids in general, he is almost sure to be provided with a stove to cultivate one or more of the most interest

ing looking Cypripediums. The one which we engrave now, fig. 1, is one of the most charmingly beautiful of the family. It is somewhat ill to manage under the ordinary routine of culture; but if it be kept near the glass in moderate heat, and the atmosphere

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dark purple, and partially streaked with darker green; two inferior sepals united into one small ovate obtuse sepal, pale, with streaks of green and purple. Petals deflexed and curved like the horns of a buffalo, white, streaked with green and purple. Lip brownish green, with purple reticulations; sterile stamen, greenish purple and white, downy; between the horns of the crescent is a downy proboscis arising from the sterile stamen. Ovary dark purple, elongated, glandulose. Leaves oblong, strap-shaped, acute-green, rising directly from the root in a somewhat cæspitose manner. Flowers in October.

It appears that the plants described by Sir W. Hooker, as well as others, were obtained at a sale of Fast Indian Orchids sent from Assam. Many importations, since the date of its illustration in the Botanical Magazine, have come to hand.

DIANTHUS CINCINNATUS.

Among recent introductions, flower gardeners have hailed the various sorts of Japanese and other Pinks as among the most captivating. The subject of our engraving, fig. 2, is one of the type of the Heddewigii and laciniatus strain, and forms, accordingly, an excellent individual either for the decoration of the mixed flower border, or may be used equally effective for grouping. The

flowers are of a rich claret colour, sometimes suffused with pink, and, from the tasselated form that the segments take, the flowers are most marked and distinct. The foliage is of ligulate character, smaller than we sometimes see D. Heddewigii to be; but the whole of the species, or rather the members of which it is composed, are of sportive character-sportive as to habit and formation of leaves, and equally sportive in the matter of flowers. We can scarcely dissociate D. cincinnatus from D. laciniatus, which is of the Chinese order, coming evidently towards the type of D. sinensis. Notwithstanding, the variety is a most eligible one. It was first brought into notice by M. Makoy, of Liege. When in good health, it flowers for three months of the season. The better way is to sow the seed in April, and transplant into nursery beds in May, finally planting out into prepared good tilth in early June, after which it soon flowers, beginning generally in July, and continuing on till late in September, provided autumn frosts do not check it. It is quite a choice border plant, and we commend all who have not grown it to note it as one of the eligible plants for summer decoration. It can be sown early in February, and grown in pots to flower in May; but by far the most satisfactory plan is to treat it as a half hardy annual, and use it as a beautiful subject for border decoration.

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