The species most extensively grown is B. globosa, which, among all our other shrubs, is quite unique; but it is only in the southern or favoured counties of England where it can be fairly termed hardy. It is readily propagated by cuttings or by seeds. The latter should be sown in a gentle heat the spring following the ripening, when they will vegetate pretty freely. With careful treatment and nurturing in pots for the first winter, in a frost-proof pit or house, they may soon be grown into elegant plants. Cuttings of the ripened wood, put in under bell glasses or hand lights, in a cool but frost-proof pit, will root slowly during the winter. They will root all the surer and quicker if each cutting has a heel of older wood attached to that of the current year's growth. They are best inserted in fine sand or in very sandy soil, and require but little water until rooted. As soon as fairly calloused over or rooted, their further progress may be much advanced by potting them off, and plunging them in a bottom-heat of 60deg. or 65deg. This is by no means an essential to secure success, but it hastens it, and promotes growth in an extraordinary manner. The surface temperature should range about the same as the bottom-heat. Under such treatment, the plants will be quite fit to place out about the middle of July. A warm, sheltered situation should be chosen, and a light, rich soil prepared for them; and if dry weather ensues, they only require water. South or west walls are, without doubt, the best situations for them. In all cool or unfavourable localities, much may be done to ensure success by planting on a dry bottom, and on poorish soil. A loose, free-and-easy style of training suits the plants best. This enables them to yield a great number of their peculiarly formed, distinct, and beautiful flowers; whereas, anything like a close, trim course of pruning or of training reduces the flowers to the lowest number.
Throughout the southern parts of England, and, indeed, in many places in the north, B. globosa makes an excellent bush for the shrubbery. It is only during severe winters that it gets badly cut.
For the other presumably hardy species much the same plan as the foregoing may be adopted. The greenhouse and stove kinds may have the same routine of culture usually employed with plants requiring similar temperatures.
Stove species, except where specified otherwise.
B. americana (American). fl. yellow; spikes disposed in a terminal panicle, nearly 1ft. long; glomerules nearly globose, size of a sloe, on short peduncles. August. l. ovate, acuminated, narrowed at the base, serrately crenated. h. 8ft. to 12ft. Peru, 1826.
B. asiatica (Asiatic).* fl. white, small, disposed in long, dense racemes. l. lanceolate, finely serrated. h. 3ft. India, 1874. A graceful and sweet-scented shrub. SYN. B. Neemda. (B. M. 6323.)
B. crispa (curled). fl. lilac, with a white eye; numerously produced in long terminal branching spikes, forming a pyramidal head about 5in. long. March. l. ovate-lanceolate, crenately curled; lower ones cordate at the base; superior ones rounded, all thick and wrinkled, clothed with soft tomentum on both surfaces. h. 13ft. Western Himalayas. Half-hardy. (B. M. 4793.)
B. globosa (globose).* fl. orange, or honey-colour; heads large, terminal, globose, pedunculate. May. l. lanceolate, acuminated, petiolate, crenated, 6in. long. Branches sub-tetragonal, clothed with hoary tomentum, as well as the under side of the leaves. h. 15ft. to 20ft. Chili, 1774. Hardy in most places. (B. M. 174.)
B. Lindleyana (Lindley's). fl. purplish-red, hairy; disposed in terminal racemose spikes. September. l. ovate, shortly petiolate, serrate. Branches angular, glabrous. h. 6ft. China, 1844. Half-hardy. (B. R. 32, 4.)
B. Neemda (Neemda). A synonym of B. asiatica.
BUDS, FLOWER. These are developed like Leaf-buds, from which they differ chiefly in containing one or more incipient flowers within the leaves—the flowers being wrapped up in their own floral-leaves, within the ordinary leaves, which have their outer covering of scales. If a Bud be gathered from a Lilac or Horse-chestnut very early in spring, all the rudiments of the future flowers and leaves will be found within it, though the Bud itself may not be more than half-an-inch long, and the flowers not larger than the points of the smallest pins.
BUDS, LEAF. These consist of rudimentary leaves, surrounding a growing vital point, and appear like a collection of scales arranged symmetrically one above the other. Leaf-buds universally originate in the horizontal or cellular system, and are formed under the bark at the extremity of the medullary rays, and at the margin or on the surface of leaves, whether perfect or rudimentary. Deciduous trees lose their leaves, but in the axil of each a little Bud previously forms, from which fresh leaves expand the following spring. In some cases, as in the Horse-chestnut, the Buds are covered with a gummy exudation. In Privet-trees, Leaf-buds are generally smaller and more elongated than Flower-buds.
BUETTNERIA (named after David Sigismund Augustus Byttner, once a Professor of Botany in the University of Göttingen). ORD. Sterculiaceæ. Erect or scandent stove or greenhouse shrubs. Flowers small, usually dark purple; calyx and corolla valvate; umbels simple, disposed in something like racemes or panicles, rarely in corymbs. Leaves simple. All are of easy culture in a compost of loam and peat. B. dasyphylla, hermanniæ-folia, microphylla, and scabra, are occasionally met with, but they are hardly worth growing.
BUETTNERIEÆ. A section of Sterculiaceæ.