I /3 0'- I THE LADIES' FLOWER-GARDEN. / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/ladiesflowergardOOIoud THE LADIES' FLOWER-GARDEN OP ORNAMENTAL BULBOUS PLANTS. BY MRS. LOUDON. LONDON: WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET. MDCCCXLI. LOXDON : BRADBVIKY AND KVANS, PHINTKRS, VVHITKKRIAltS. INTRODUCTION. There are many persons who have no idea of any other flowering bulbs than hyacinths, tulips, crocuses, and narcissi ; and there are very few indeed who grow collections of bulbous plants in their gardens. The reason of this must be principally because the splendid flowers produced by these plants are but little known ; as in other respects bulbs have much to recommend them. Nothing can exceed the brilliancy and variety of the colour displayed by their flowers, and nothing can be more simple than their culture. The bulb, when purchased, contains within itself the future flower, and it requires very little aid from the gardener to develop it. Its long period of rest also leaves the ground half the year free for other plants ; and by growing the bulbs in pots, and removing them as soon as they have done flowering, to mature their leaves in a reserve ground, the beds in the flower-garden will be ready to be covered with annuals, which may have been previously sown and brought forward, and thus the beauty of the garden will be preserved during the whole season of flowers. Among the other advantages of bulbous plants, is the very great one, that many of them produce their flowers in very early spring ; at a season when few other plants are in blossom, and yet when flowers are doubly valuable from their rarity. At this season, a bed of crocuses presents a flowery carpet of the most brilliant colours, and borders of hyacinths refresh us with their fragrance, while they enchant us with their beauty. About the same time the bright blue flowers of the scillas burst at once in full perfection through the ground ; and a httle later these are followed by the fritillarias, the crown imperials, the narcissi, the tulips, and the irises, which in their turn are succeeded by the showy gladioluses and the stately lilies. Interspersed with these come a whole host of beautiful flowers, of which few persons know even the names. The Morteas, the Vieusseuxias, the Homerias, the babianas, the different kinds of sparaxis, tritonia, and ixia, with many, many others, form altogether a garden of unrivalled richness, which varies every month by a succession of new flowers, every fresh one appearing more splendid than the last. 2 _ INTRODUCTION. The principal objection generally made to the culture of bulbs is their expense ; and this, if fresh bulbs are to be purchased in the seed-shops every year, is certainly considerable. With a little care, however, bulbs may be preserved for many years in this country, so as to flower every season as well as those yearly imported from abroad. All that is requisite is to study the nature of the bulb, and to treat it accordingly. A bulb, though generally considered as a root, partakes in fact much more of the nature of a seed ; as when it is fixed firmly in the ground, or suspended over water, it sends down its true roots, and up its ascending shoot, exactly in the same manner as a seed does when it vegetates ; the feculent matter contained in the fleshy scales of the bulb serving to nourish the young plant in the same manner as the albumen in the cotyledons of the seed. There are, however, some important differences. The seed wastes away in giving birth to the plant which springs from it, while the bulb, though really renovated every year, remains to all appearance the same after flowering as when it was put into the ground ; the seed also sends up a stem producing buds, which become leaves or branches, while the bulb only sends up leaves and a flower-stem without buds. What are commonly called bulbs are of three kinds ; the tunicated bulbs, such as the hyacinth and the onion, which consist of a number of coats or tunics, which may be peeled off one after another ; the solid bulbs or corms, such as the crocus, which consist of one solid, white, nut-like mass, covered with a loose skin ; and the scaly bulbs, such as the lily, which consist of fleshy scales only connected at the root. All the kinds abound in feculent or starchy matter, provided by nature for the support of the young plant. The bulb, thus containing within itself the substance necessary to supply nourishment to the plant which is to spring from it, only requires to be stimulated by heat and moisture to make it produce leaves and flowers ; and thus hyacinths, and many other bulbs, may be flowered in glasses with water only, quite as well as in any kind of soil. When this is the case, however, the bulb becomes greatly exhausted ; and if it were taken out of the glass, and then dried immediately, it would be incapable of producing any flowers the following year, and would, indeed, probably die, all its stock of nourishment having been exhausted. To prevent this from being the case, the bulb, as soon as it has done flowering, is taken out of the glass, and planted in the earth; in order that its roots may extract a sufficient quantity of rich food from the soil, to enable it to lay up a fresh stock of nutritive matter for the ensuing year : the new matter, whether it be accumulated in the form of fleshy tunics, or scales, or of a solid mass, always entirely supplying the place of the old and exhausted parts, which shrivel and decay. The new INTRODUCTION. 3 matter thus formed appears in different positions, according to the nature of the bulb to which it belongs. Sometimes it forms in the centre of the old bulb, as in the hyacinth ; sometimes on the side, as in the tulip ; sometimes above, as in the crocus ; and occasionally under, as in the bulbous irises. Thus, another reason is afforded for taking up and replanting bulbs every year ; as unless this be done, the crocuses will in a few years be actually pushed out of the ground, and the irises sunk too deeply into it to flower, while the tulips will travel away from the place where they were originally planted. This, in fact, does take place when bulbs are left for several years in the ground without taking up ; and thus many are lost, besides those that die from the excess of moisture to which they are exposed, if they are left during winter in the soil. It should never be forgotten that many bulbous-rooted plants are natives of warm countries in very dry situations, where the extraordinary provision of nourishment laid up in the bulb is absolutely necessary for their preservation. Many of these are natives of the hot sandy plains of South Africa, where they are subject to alternate seasons of excessive rain, and excessive dryness : and to produce an assimilation to this climate in the culture of the Cape bulbs, they should be allowed a season of complete repose ; as during the dry season the bulb lies in its native sands without roots or leaves, which it is only stimulated to produce by the excessive moisture to which it is exposed, when the rainy season begins. The new matter which bulbs form every year to supply the place of that exhausted by the production of stems, leaves, and flowers, must not be confounded with the offsets or young bulbs, which are produced by the side of the old ones, and which are the principal means provided by nature for continuing the species. These offsets, indeed, can only be considered in the hght of suckers, and are quite distinct from the old bulb ; which nature renovates every year, by a process peculiar to this class of plants. The feculent matter in the bulb is produced, like the mealiness of over-ripe fruit, by the light and heat of the sun elaborating the sap, and evaporating its watery particles during its circulation through the leaves, and forcing it to deposit its carbon. To effect this, the bulb should be placed in an open, but sheltered situation, where it will be fully exposed to the sun's rays ; and it should be allowed to retain all its leaves, as it is during the progress of the sap through the leaves, that it is principally acted upon by the heat of the sun. For this reason, the leaves of a bulbous plant should never be cut off till they begin to wither and turn brown at the points, which is a sign that the sap no longer circulates through them ; as if they are cut off before the sap is fully matured, the bulb will either produce no flowers at all the ensuing year, or its flowers will be pale and weak. The bulb itself would indeed perish, if the leaves were to be cut off as fast as they appeared. b2 4 INTRODUCTION. As soon as the leaves have withered they should be pulled off, and the bulb taken up and kept dry till the planting season returns ; and this is done, because if the bulbs are left in the ground during their season of complete repose, during which their growth is entirely stopped, they will be either in danger of becoming rotten by the moisture of the earth, or be stimulated by it into a premature and unnatural activity. Bulbs are propagated not only by their offsets, but by seeds ; though when raised in the latter method, they arc generally four or five years before they flower. All bulbous plants are what is called monocotyledonous ; that is, their seeds send up only one seed-leaf, instead of dividing into two, and their leaves are veined longitudinally, without any, or with very slight ramifications, instead of being strongly reticulated hke those of the dicotyledonous plants. vi CONTENTS, GENUS XXXV. Eurycles - xzxvi. Pancratium - XXXVII. Hymenocallis xxxviii. Ismene - XXXIX. Narcissus - XL. Galanthus XLi. Erinosma - XLii. Acis XLiii. Leucojum - XLiv. Gethyllis PAGE - The Eurycles - - - 160 - Tiie Sea Daffodil - - - 161 - The Hymenocallis - - 163 - The Ismene - - - - 164 - The Narcissus - - - 167 - The Snowdrop - - - - 180 J The Spring Snowflake, or St. " L Agnes'-flower - - - 181 J The Acis, or Narrow-leaved "1 Snowflake - - - 182 - The Snowflake - - - 1 83 - The Gethyllis, or Cape Crocus 184 I. Veltheimia II. Brodiaea III. Calliprora - CHAPTER V. HEMEaOCALLIDEi£. - The Veltheimia - - The Brodisea - The Calliprora CHAPTER VI. ASPHODELACE^. - 185 . 186 - 187 1. Camassia - - The Quamash - 187 II. Bessera - The Bessera - - 188 III. Puschkinia - The Puschkinia - 188 IV. Albuca - - The Albuca - - 189 V. Ornithogalum - The Star of Bethlehem - 192 VI. Urginea - The Sea Onion - - 201 VII. Gagea - The Gagea - - 202 VIII. Bamardia - The Chinese Squill - - - 203 IX. Orithjria - - The Orithyia - 204 X. Lloydia Mountain Spider-wort - - 204 XI. Myogalum - r The Wild Hyacinth, or L bell Hare- - 205 XII. Scilla . The Squill - - 206 GENUS XIII. Hyacinthus - ■ The XIV. Uropetalon - The XV. BellevaUa - - The XVI. Muscari - - The XVII. Lachenalia - ~ The XVIII. Drimia - - The XIX. Eriospermum - The XX. AUium - - The XXI. Cyanella - - The XXII. Conanthera - The XXIII. Cummingia - - The XXIV. Triteleia - - The XXV. Hesperoscordum XXVI. Leucocoryne - The XXVII. Milla - - - The Hyacinth Uropetalon Roman Squill Grape Hyacinth Lachenalia Drimia Eriospermum Garlic Cyanella Conanthera Cummingia - Triteleia - Missouri Hyacinth, Onion of the West Leucocoryne MUla PABE - 212 - 221 - 222 - 222 - 225 - 230 - 231 - 232 - 238 - 240 - 240 - 241 or - 242 - 243 - 243 CHAPTER VII. LILIACE^. I. Tuhpa - The Tulip - - 244 II. FritiUaria - The FritiUary - - - 250 III. Cyclobothra - The Cyclobothra - - 252 IV. Calochortus - - The Calochortus - - 254 V. Rhinopetalum - The Rhinopetalum - 256 VI. Lilium - The Lily - - - 256 VII. Erythronium - Dog's-tooth Violet - 262 I. Bulbocodium II. Colchicum- III. Merendera IV. Wurmbea - V. Melanthium - CHAPTER VIII. MELANTHACE^. The Bulbocodium - - 265 /The Colchicum, or Meadow "I Saffron - - - - 265 The Merendera The Wurmbea - The Melanthium - 267 - 267 - 268 LIST OF PLATES. PAGB PLATE I.