THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 4& 



ceje offers two species, Balsamina and Impatiens ; the Leguminos£e has its 

 Lupines, and Orobus Fischeri; Onagraceae, a huge number of the Califor- 

 nian favourites ; Lithraceae, the pretty and useful Cuphea purpurea, in 

 addition to the greenhouse perennial bedding kinds. It would be impos- 

 sible to enumerate the number of species and varieties of the Composites, 

 Campanulas, Phloxes, Linarias, and Labiates, without making lengthy 

 lists, and then we should have to add a dozen other orders which admit 

 of detailed study in a garden of annuals. These remarks have occurred 

 to us through having received from a correspondent a complaint of the 

 few opportunities afforded to amateurs for the study of botany. He says, 

 after the hours of business in a great town, it is impossible to make 

 frequent journeys to the country to gather specimens for the herbai'iura. 

 That may be true ; stiU, " where there's a will there's a way." Grimaldi, 

 the clown, when a lad, used to travel to Dartmouth after leaving the 

 theatre at one in the morning, to catch " Dartford Blues," a particular 

 species of two-winged fly, which he required for an entomological cabinet. 

 The best collection of British mosses, perhaps, ever got together, and cer- 

 tainly the first really interesting book on mosses in the Enj^lish language, 

 was the work of an operative residing in a grimy Lancashire town. But 

 if our friend wishes to obtain knowledge easily and pleasantly, let him 

 make a careful selection of annual flowers, and grow them expressly for 

 botanical purposes. He may have to do with many that present but few 

 features of attraction, but the majority will beautify his garden while they 

 last, and prove that botany is not, after all, so dry a pursuit as some people 

 imagine it to be. 



Viewed in the strictly floricultural sense, annuals commend them- 

 selves for the rapidity with wliich, by their aid, an effect may be produced 

 in garden colouring. Added to our numerous old favourites, we have now 

 some improved forms that must have a place in every well-ke[)t garden. 

 The new Zinnia elegans flure-pleno ia a really superb thing, and may be 

 looked for this seascm as a leading agtnt in thu bedding system. The 

 flowers are three inches across, the yellow tubular florets are replaced by 

 ligulate florets of the same rich colour as those forming the circumference, 

 so as to form a complete rosette, resembling a closely imbricated dahlia. 

 There is the same variety of colours in this new group as in the old form 

 of single-rayed flowers, and the growth is as free and regular. The pretty 

 Clintonia pulchella, exquisite for small beds and marginal lines and rib- 

 bons, has produced an improved form, called Azurea grandiflora, producing 

 larger flowers than the species, which we believe will prove a favourite 

 both for use in masses and for the decoration of vases in the conservatory. 

 Of the double Clarkias we cannot speak commendingiy ; several are offered 

 as the result of continental culture, but what is gained in additional petals 

 is lost in elegance : just as in campanulas, double flowers are never so 

 pleasing to an educate 1 eye as those which have the typical campanulate 

 form. Lobelia bicolor marmorata is undoubtedly a valuable acquisition, 

 and may be treated as an annual or perennial, at the will of the cultivator. 

 It is as compact in growth as Lobelia erinus speciosa (which, by the way, 

 is now beginning to degenerate, if raised from seed), but differs from it 

 by being of a pale marbled blue towards the centre, where it becomes pure 

 white; the margins of the petals being of an intense blue, the effect of a 

 mass is chaste and refreshing. But the improved asters carry the day, 

 and are a splendid vindication of annual flowers against all that has been 



