Gloxinias are so beautiful in their colourings, and are so ornamental, that it is no matter for surprise to find them in most gardens of importance. Nowadays, however, they are principally grown from seed instead of cultivating the old bulbs for successive seasons as was formerly practised. They are easily raised in this way, and the plants produced are more vigorous and floriferous than those produced by old bulbs, or by cuttings or leaves. They can be flowered in about six months from the time of sowing.
Fibrous loam or leaf-soil, mixed with sand and peat, will answer for the seed pans and for the after compost. Seed sown in January or February will give a succession of flower, and later sowings may be made for winter bloom. The seed should be thinly sown and covered with a sprinkling of fine soil. The pans ought then to be placed in a temperature of about 70 degrees, and shaded from strong sun. The young seedlings are very liable to damp off, and must be pricked out into other pans or pots as soon as possible. They will grow quickly in a moist warm house, and, when a fair size, may be repotted, giving a forty-eight size pot for the final shift. They can have then a temperature of sixty to sixty-five degrees. A little manure water is beneficial at intervals, but this, and a moist atmosphere, are prejudicial when the plants are in bloom.
Cuttings of the young shoots taken off when the old bulbs are started are easily struck in a propagating frame, and are afterwards potted and treated like young seedlings. When the leaves are firm, they may either be inserted in fine soil like cuttings with a portion of the petiole or footstalk, or by cutting through the midribs at several places and pegging down the leaves on cocoa fibre or sand in a close frame.
Old tubers of Gloxinias should be carefully stored in winter beyond the reach of frost, and started into growth in February in small pots in a temperature of about sixty-five degrees. Until they have fairly begun to grow they should have little water. Similar treatment is suitable for some of the other Gesneraceous plants, such as the Gesnerias.
The Hæmanthus is a handsome and distinct-looking plant, but it is seldom that one meets with it in private gardens. Its usefulness is lessened by its handsome leaves appearing at a different time from the flowers, but this fault may be partly concealed by an arrangement of other plants about the pots containing the Hæmanthi. A few of the species can be grown in a cool greenhouse, but the greater number ought to be cultivated in a higher temperature. H. sanguineus is one of the easiest to grow and the writer has grown and flowered it yearly in a house from which frost was only excluded and where the temperature fell to near freezing point. For the greater number, however, a temperature of from fifty to sixty degrees in the growing season is best. After flowering they should have a short period of rest.