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Compositae (Greenhouse or half-hardy)

Greenhouse or half-hardy herbaceous perennials, rarely annuals, all natives of Australia. Receptacle naked; involucre nearly equal, many-leaved, in a single or double row. They may be grown successfully in any ordinary garden soil. Propagated by divisions of the root. C. cuneifolia (wedge-leaved).* fl.-heads blue, solitary, terminal. July and August. l. cuneate, cut, toothed at end. h. 1ft. 1819. Greenhouse herbaceous perennial. (B. R. 504.) CALOTROPIS (from kalos, beautiful, and tropis, a keel; literally "beautifully twisted," apparently in reference to the corolla of C. gigantea). ORD. Asclepiadeae. A genus of stove evergreen shrubs, or small trees. The three species bear large handsome flowers, in interpetiolar umbels. They thrive best in a mixture of loam, sand, and peat. Young cuttings, thinly dibbled in a pot of sand, strike root freely under a hand glass, in heat. Care must be taken that they do not receive an excess of moisture, or they will rot. C. gigantea (gigantic).* fl. very handsome, a mixture of rose and purple; corona shorter than the gynostegium, obtuse, circinately recurved at the base; umbels sometimes, though rarely, compound, surrounded by several involucral scales. July. l. decussate, broad, wedge-shaped, bearded on the upper side at the base, woolly-downy on the under side, 4in. to 6in. long, 2in. to 3in. broad. h. 6ft. to 15ft. India, &c., 1690. (B. R. i. 58.) C. procera (tall). fl. white; petals spreading, marked at the top by a purple spot. July. l. obovate-oblong, on short petioles, whitish from wool. h. 6ft. Persia, 1714. (B. R. 1792.)