B. Carderi, which has handsome rose-coloured flowers spotted with brown; oligantha, red and yellow; Shuttleworthi, vermilion, yellow, red, and green. Edulis has been longest grown, and has rose flowers tipped with green; the hardiest species is probably B. salsilla, with purple and green flowers. This is hardy in a few districts when other conditions are favourable.
Caladiums are among the most useful of stove perennial plants, and their adaptability to growing for table and room decoration adds much to their general value. The beauty of form and the fine colouring of their foliage place them high in the ranks of stove plants. A capital compost is made of turfy loam, turfy peat, and leaf-soil in equal parts, with a little well-rotted manure and some sharp sand. In March or earlier, if they have been long at rest, the tubers are started into growth in a temperature of not less than 60 degrees; when they have made growth, they may be placed in five or six inch pots, and the supply of water gradually increased until it is given freely, with alternate waterings of some liquid manure. They should be kept growing in a high temperature, and then hardened-off in a cooler part of the building preparatory to their removal to the conservatory. When the leaves begin to grow yellow, gradually decrease the water supply, and store for the winter in a temperature of not less than sixty degrees. Do not allow them to become entirely dry. A large number of hybrid Caladiums have been raised, and these, which will be found in the catalogues of leading nurserymen, have almost driven the original species out of cultivation.
Clivias--Colocasias--Crinums--Cyclamens--Cyrtanthuses--Eucharises and Urceocharis--Eurycles
The Clivias and Imantophyllums were formerly kept distinct, but are now combined by botanists, the name Imantophyllum being retained as that of a sub-genus. Both have long leaves in opposite rows and umbels of flowers, which are of various shades of yellow, orange, or scarlet. C. nobilis grows about a foot high, and has bright red-yellow flowers. Gardneri has fewer flowers (twelve to twenty in the umbel). Miniata is the only species belonging to the sub-genus Imantophyllum, and seedlings, or hybrids between it and the other species, have been obtained in considerable numbers. The catalogues of leading bulb dealers may be consulted for the varieties now in commerce. All are ornamental in pots or planted out in beds or borders in airy houses, with a temperature of from fifty to sixty degrees. In spring and summer they should have plenty of water, both at the roots and applied by means of the syringe. A rather lower temperature and less water are desirable in spring. They should have a soil composed of good fibry loam and peat in the proportion of about three of the former to one of the latter, with a little charcoal, bone-meal, and silver sand. C. miniata flowers in spring and summer, and the other species in winter and spring.