Hot-House

Air, admit freely as the season will admit. - Bark-beds, keep in operation. - Bulbs, in pots, introduce. - Cucumbers, sow in pots, and plunge in bark-bed. - Flowering Plants, as Pinks, etc, introduce in pots. - Glasses must now all be put in, for forcing commences in earnest; cover during severe frost. - Kidney Beans (Dwarf), sown in boxes, etc, introduce. - Peaches, day temp. 55°; keep air moist. - Pines, water occasionally; attend strictly to the bottom heat. - Roses in pots, introduce. - Strawberries in pots, introduce. - Temperature, may decline 15° or 20° at night; day temp. for flowering plants 60°. - Vines in pots may be introduced; or planted in Hot-house; stems outside bind round thickly with hay-bands, etc. - Water is required in small quantities; keep it in the house.

Green-House

Air, admit as freely as possible; cause the best draught you can. - Compost, prepare. - Earth of pots, stir when crusted. - Foggy air exclude, for damp renders cold injurious. - Glass, cover with mats, etc, during severe frost. - Leaves, clean; remove decayed. - Peat Soil, collect. - Temperature, sustain as required by lighting fires; day maximum, 45°; night minimum, 35°. - Water sparingly.

December Moth

See Paecil-ocampa.

Deciduous Cypress

Taxodium distichum.

Deciduous Plants

Deciduous Plants are those which shed all their leaves at one time annually. In this country the fall of the leaf is during the autumn. In the East Indies it is during the hottest and driest months.

Decodons

Decodons verticillatus. Hardy herbaceous. Division. Common soil.

Decumaria

Three species. Hardy deciduous twiners. Layers and cuttings. Common soil.

Degenerate

A plant is said to have degenerated, or to be not of true stock, when it arises from seed without the good characteristics of the parent. Ill cultivation may render a plant of altered stature, and its produce of deficient flavour; but this is not degeneracy. A species never degenerates; its seed may be hybridized; but the seedlings are not degenerate - they are varieties. But varieties do degenerate: Brussels sprouts grown at Malines give birth to seeds that yield seedlings quite degenerated; but those seedlings, returned to the neighbourhood of Brussels, yield, after two or three generations, plants that are true Brussels sprouts.

Many varieties of wheat, excellent when cultivated in one locality, yield seed that produces a different and inferior sample in another locality, differing in soil and annual meteorological phenomena.

Delima

Two species. Stove evergreen climbers. Cuttings. Loam, peat, and sand.

Delphinium

Larkspur. Fifty-three species, and many varieties. - Hardy perennials and annuals. Division or seed. Common soil.

Dendrobium

Fifty-seven species. Stove epiphytes. Division. Turfy peat.

Dendromecon

Dendromecon rigidum. Half-hardy evergreen shrub. Seed. Common soil.

Dentaria

Thirteen species. Hardy tubers. Division or seed. Sandy moist shaded soil.