THE FLORAL WORLD 



AND 



GAEDEN GUIDE. 



JUNE, 1868. 



YARIEaATED-LEAYED PELAEGOXIUMS. 



|HERE is nothing more interesting in the history of 

 modern floriculture — or we may better say, perhaps, 

 the history of modern taste — than the rapidly-developed 

 passion for the cultivation of variegated-leaved pelar- 

 goniums. It seems as if but yesterday we first heard 

 of the beautiful and then wondrous Mrs. Polloch, and now we can- 

 not find a garden where any kind of greenhouse plants has place, 

 but we meet with collections of them ; and at the nurseries they 

 not only constitute a very important part of the stock as subjects 

 in constant demand, but the production and distribution of new 

 varieties afi'ord additional stimuli to skill and industry. Since leaf- 

 colouring — as in many instances better adapted for the parterre 

 than flower-colouring — has acquired the importance we long ago 

 predicted for it, gold and silver zonate pelargoniums have been 

 largely employed in addition to the older and scarcely less useful 

 race of white and creamy edged varieties, which were usually de- 

 scribed under the collective designation of " variegated." Mrs. 

 Pollock, indeed, has proved to be one of the best of bedding plants ; 

 but there are varieties of more recent date superior to it both in 

 habit of growth and distinctiveness of leaf-colouring. Generally 

 speaking, the varieties in which the normal green hue of the leaf 

 gives place to tints of yellow, red, and brown, are more vigorous in 

 constitution than those in which there is any considerable amount 

 of white or cream colour. Xo one at all familiar with the laws of 

 vegetable physiology will feel any surprise at this, for etiolation and 

 debility are directly related. But it is observable that varieties that 

 are very highly coloured with tints of yellow, red, brown, and black, 

 are invariably less vigorous than the common green-leaved or dark- 

 zoned varieties of the normal type, such as in former days were 

 called " horse-shoe geraniums." Hence, although the " tricolors" 

 of the nurseries, or "gold zonals" and "silver zonals" of our classi- 

 fication, grow tolerably fast in many cases, when treated skilfully, 

 they do not in any case attain to an effective size and flowering 



YOL. III. — NO. YI. 11 



