Crassula

THE CRASSULA, Crassula coccine

THIS is one of the handsomest and most useful plants of its class, and, in common with many other garden favourites, it presents us with several variations, the results of the manipulations of the florists. The reader who does not happen to know the plant may be advised to look first in the central avenue of Covent Garden Market in June and July. The accompanying portrait will certainly assist in the identification, but the chances are that the attention will be arrested by a batch of plants having the style of growth indicated by the plate, but with crowing corymbs of flowers of an intensely vivid carmine-scarlet colour. Now it may be proper to say that in nearly all botanical and horticultural inquiries and criticisms, colour is the last quality to be thought of while form is the first. The splendid scarlet crassulas that will probably be seen in the market, and that one might imagine to be floral emblems of fire-worship, are examples of the typical, or specific, or normal, or original Crassula coccinea, while the one here figured is one of its variations, for the plant gives us a choice of scarlet, crimson, carmine, and white flowers; but in every case the form and the habit of growth are the same.

There is not a plant in the country more worthy of the attention of the amateur florist than this. To grow it well a heated plant-house is absolutely necessary; but given that, the rest is easy. The first requisite to success is to raise a few young plants from cuttings, the best time for this being July. These, being rooted in three-inch pots, may be wintered in the greenhouse, where they must have plenty of light, and be safe from frost and drip. Give them the warmest and driest place in the house, and let them have sufficient water to keep the leaves plump, for if the leaves shrivel, the plants will be weakened.