as
it flowers during most of the year: its blossoms are found to vary from
a deep to a very pale red. It is a hardy green-house plant, and usually
propagated by cuttings.
To have this beautiful tribe of plants in perfection, they must be kept
in pots proportioned to their size, filled with that kind of bog earth
in which our British heaths grow spontaneously, finely sifted; to which
it may be necessary sometimes to add a third part of the mould of rotten
leaves, or choice loam, partaking more of a clayey than a sandy nature:
we must be careful not to let them suffer for want of water in dry hot
weather, as such an omission, even for one day, may be fatal; and to
give them as much air as possible at all times when the weather is
mild.
[Illustration: _No 220_]
[221]
IPOMOEA COCCINEA. SCARLET IPOMOEA.
_Class and Order._
PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.
_Generic Character._
_Cor._ infundibuliformis, _Stigma_ capitato-globosum, _Caps._
3-locularis.
_Specific Character and Synonyms._
IPOMOEA _coccinea_ foliis cordatis acuminatis basi angulatis,
pedunculis multifloris. _Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14. Murr. p.
204._ _Ait. Kew. V. 1. p. 215._
CONVOLVULUS coccineus, folio anguloso, _Plum. Amer. 89. t. 103._
QUAMOLCIT americana, folio hederae, flore coccineo. _Comm. rar. 21. t.
21._
The _Ipomoea_ is very nearly related to the _Convolvulus_, one
principal difference consists in the different form of its stigma, which
is globular, like that of the Primrose; whereas in the Convolvulus it is
divided into two substances, as is obviously shewn in the _Convolvulus
arvensis_ and _sepium_, but all the plants of these two genera have not
this character marked with equal strength.
The present species is a twining plant, will run up a stick to the
height of six, eight, or ten feet, and produce an abundance of flowers,
of a rich orange colour tending to scarlet, which renders it one of the
most ornamental annuals cultivated in our gardens, into which it is not
as yet generally introduced, though cultivated by Mr. MILLER, in 1759.
Mr. MILLER describes it as a native of Carolina, and the Bahama Islands,
Mr. AITON of the West-Indies; it flowers from June to September.
It is cultivated in the same manner, and with the same ease as other
annuals; three seeds may be set in the ground, about four inches
asunder, in the form of a triangle; when the seedlings are sufficiently
advanced, a tall stick i
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