the winter, where a mean temperature of 45° is maintained. As decorative plants, they are invaluable, for they last good a long time, and are moreover particularly useful for mixing with other everlasting flowers for making up vases for winter decorations, their colours being so distinct from everything else in the same way.
Stocks of several kinds may be turned to good account for the conservatory, their spicy odour being as welcome as their bold spikes of double flowers. To grow them well in pots is not so easy a matter as may appear to amateurs who have not made the experiment; consequently, those who are altogether inexperienced must not expect triumphant success in the first instance.
The seed should be sown in a shallow box or pan on the 1st of August, and be shut up in a frame until sprouted, after which full exposure to light and air is necessary. As soon as the plants are large enough to handle, pot them into 48-sized pots, three plants in a pot. The compost should consist of turfy loam, two parts, and good rotten manure one part. They must be potted firmly, or they will not thrive; keep them fully exposed to the weather until frost is likely, when remove them to a cold pit, and put a mat over when the weather is severe.
Early in January take the forwardest to the greenhouse and keep them near the glass. In the middle of February remove them to a temperature of 50° to 60°, syringe them daily, and keep them watered with weak liquid manure. They will flower finely, and repay you for your trouble.
Those left in the pit are to be taken to the greenhouse in February, and are to remain there until they flower, to succeed the first lot, as they will not want any more heat than they will obtain here.
It is a good plan to put out a lot of the plants from the August sowing in a bed of light rich soil in a turf pit, and in the spring lift them carefully, and plant them in a bed near the windows, to perfume the welcome breath of the early summer.
Streptanthera.—This scarce Cape bulb is by some considered a gladiolus, but it is a true Irid. S. cuprea is the most handsome, being a rosy copper-colour with black marks in the
