APRIL. 75 



but reflexed), yet its circular form, regularity of petal, high and full 

 centre, beautiful colour, and constancy, render it absolutely necessary 

 to every exhibitor ; while its value as a garden-variety or market- 

 flower is equally acknowledged ; and its dwarf habit and profusion of 

 perfectly double flowers make it an universal favourite. 



The Pompon Chrysanthemum Pouledetto, associated with Annie 

 Salter, was raised in 1849 by Mr. Lebois of Paris, an ardent lover 

 of this tribe of plants, and to whom we are indebted for many fine 

 varieties ; it is a seedling from Mr. Fortune's Chusan Daisy, a pretty 

 little variety distributed by the Horticultural Society of London a 

 year or two ago. Alfred Salter. 



Versailles Nursery, Hammersmith Turnpike, 



ON THE RUNNING OF THE CARNATION. 



The experience and observation of some years incline me to reject 

 the idea that composts can in any material degree either induce or 

 prevent the propensity to sport observable in the Carnation, which 

 we term ' running,' I have, by way of experiment, grown them in 

 soils of various enrichment, from pure sandy loam to unalloyed de- 

 composed animal manures, with about equal results in that respect. 



Take a given number of plants propagated from the same origi- 

 nal, pot them into the same pot, and some will probably be run ; I 

 cannot, therefore, understand why, if the compost were in fault, the 

 effect should be partial. I have also observed, that in some summers 

 the complaint of an unusual number of run flowers will be pretty 

 general in a particular district ; and as it is barely possible to sup- 

 pose that the composts used by several growers were all precisely the 

 same, it appears to me that we must look elsewhere for a solution 

 of this mystery. I view it simply as a natural tendency to sport 

 (observable in other flowers besides the one in question) ; and though 

 that inclination most frequently is to return to the natural self-colour 

 of the original type, yet instances are not wanting of its taking an 

 opposite direction ; — thus Ely's Lady Ely (r.f.) is a sport from Ely's 

 Duke of Bedford (c.b.), as Fletcher's Duchess of Devonshire (r.f.) 

 is also from Gregory's King Alfred ; while Puxley's Prince Albert, 

 classed as a p.p.b., is often a very high-coloured c.b., and has posi- 

 tively sported to an s.b. Moreover, it does not follow that be- 

 cause the one or two leading blooms which the flower is alone suf- 

 fered by Florists to bear happen to be run, that the lower ones, if 

 they had been permitted to remain, would have been in that condi- 

 tion. I have seen a leading bloom of Beauty of Woodhouse (p.f.), 

 a purple self or clove, and the second flower on the same stem a 

 pure white. I turned out last season into the border what I supposed 

 from the bloom in the pot to be a run Ward's Sarah Payne, but late 

 in autumn it produced a bloom low down on the stem perfectly 

 clean. 



