ON THE TEEE MALLOAV. 291 



flowered. I may state that last winter, or rather spring, was one 

 of the severest on record about Stornoway, and more than the 

 usual amount of snow fell, with which the ground was covered 

 for nearly six weeks. The 2000 plants received this autumn 

 from Messrs P. S. Eoberston & Co. have been temporarily 

 planted in the kitchen garden, where they will be safe through- 

 out the winter from the hares, and will be retransplanted in 

 spring. They are now growing nicely, not one of them having 

 been lost." The Eev. James Ingram, U.P. Manse, Island of Eday, 

 Orkney, in a Istter dated the 4th December 1876, reports : — " My 

 experience of the tree mallow cultivation has been confined to 

 the garden here, where, with a south exposure and near a 7 feet 

 wall, it attained a height of 9 J feet, with 2 inches in diameter of 

 stem, and there were numerous branches on all sides wonderfully 

 prolific in beautiful red blossoms. It continued flowering threes 

 months, and almost the latest flowers produced ripe seed. The 

 l^lants in the east and west borders were not so large, being only 

 6 feet high and proportionately small in other respects, but they 

 produced a large quantity of ripe seeds. I have not had a single 

 plant uprooted by the storms, though cabbages frequently suffer 

 in that way." David Curror, Esquire of Craigduckie, writes from 

 Eosythe Cottage on the 26th December : — " In 1875 about a dozen 

 of the mallow plants, reared from the seeds you gave me, had 

 attained in their second year to a height of 14 feet, with 9 to 

 10 inches in girth of stem above the ground. These plants 

 blossomed freely, and a large quantity of seeds matured on each. 

 An unflowered plant, raised from seed last spring, which I 

 measured yesterday, was 83 inches in height by 8 inches 

 in greatest girth of stem, so that the growth of the tree mallow 

 has been a perfect success here, close to Eosythe Old Castle, on 

 the north side of the Firth of Forth." 



William Hay, Esquire, Eabbit Hall, Portobello, planted 

 a number of tree mallows in 1871, where they were fully exposed 

 to the north-east sea blasts, and where the hardiest of sea-side, 

 trees and shrubs did little more than merely retain a stunted 

 existence. Here some of the mallows grew to fully 10 feet in 

 lieight ; and one, bearing a full crop of seeds, having been broken 

 down in autunni 1872, these wer(j greedily devoured by turkeys, 

 and other domestic fowls that, having thus accjuired a taste for 

 them, proceeded to attack those on the standing plants, where it 

 was amusing to see them Hying up and holding on by the slender 

 top branches, devouring every seed they could possibly get at. 

 Writing subseiiucaitly to Mr John M' Xulvie, schoolmaster, 

 Kildonan, and Mr Jiobert ^I'Niell, Dreadalbane Cottage in that 

 vicinity, — to both of whom I am indebted for specimens and in- 

 fonnation, — they replied confirmatory of the liking for the mallow 

 seeds displayed by domestic poidtry. And this farther points to 



