122 



THE FLOKAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



month for descriptions, and reference to 

 last year's volume will enable readers to 

 judge which are the best to plant out or 

 select for propa,t;ating. I stronjily reconi- 

 raemled Imperial Crimson, Diadematum, 

 Ciirraine Nosegay, and Stella when they 

 were first sent out by Messrs. Henderson. 

 I saw these in great batches in one of the 

 houses which Mr. Summers has made as 

 gay as a Berlin wool mat, and amongst 

 them some new ones about which it would 

 not be f lir to speak until they are to be let 

 out. One I may name, because I fancy by 

 the strain of it that it is from the same 

 hands as the Imperial Crimson, Mr. Beaton 

 being a persevering breeder of nosegays. 

 It is a dwarf, neat habited nosegay, the 

 colour is shaded carmine, and it is pro- 

 visionally named Magenta, which name I 

 imadne will have to be cancelled, for on 

 comparing the blooms with true Magenta 

 dye, there is as much difference as between 

 a crimson and a scarlet. I shall try this 

 ceranium in half a dozen ways this season ; 

 in the hottest border, in the shadiest, in 

 rich soil and in poor soil, and I quite ex- 

 pect by the look of it that a hot place and 

 poor stuff win be necessary to make it 

 flower freely and bring out the true colour. 

 I recommended Purple Nosegay strongly 

 last, season, and our friends complained of a 

 difficulty in getting it. That difficulty is 

 at an end. There is an immense stock of 

 it here, along with Crystal Palace Scarlet, 

 Christina, Rubens, all Beaton's nosegays, 

 and the best of the proved bedding gera- 



nlams of the last half dozen years. The 

 demand for bedding plants Is certainly in- 

 creasing rapidly if such wholesale growth 

 as is here to be seen is to be any criterion. 

 Dut leaving the bedders for the present, I 

 must record a fact of greater importance, 

 and that is, that Mr. Summers showed me 

 a stock of over fifteen hundred seedling 

 pampas grasses, so all the losses of last 

 v.'inter can be made good without the risk 

 of seed, nearly all of wliich now on sale is 

 as dead as rappee. One more remark to 

 balance against this praise of Messrs. 

 Carter's bedding stock, and that is that 

 their catalogue of bedding plants needs a 

 careful revision, and amateurs may be led 

 astray by Its mistakes. Kingsbury Pet is 

 entered as a scarlet geranium. It is not 

 scarlet, but salmou flesh. Little David 

 is described as superior to Tom Thumb, a 

 statement in which Messrs. Henderson also 

 Indulge In their catalogue of soft wooded 

 plants. It is not superior but different ; it 

 bites the ground more closely, has the same 

 coloured leaf, as good a flower, but makes 

 ten times as many seeds as Tom Thumb. 

 It is dwarfer, and needs more watching to 

 remove tlie trusses before they seed. Mr. 

 Shirley HIbberd chrysanthemum is en- 

 tered as a pompone, but it should be in the 

 next section of pompone anemone flowered. 

 There are other inaccuracies, the result, 

 perhaps, of hurry, at a season when we 

 should all like to have twenty-four hours 

 daylight, and strength to go on without 

 need of sleep. Shirley Hibberd. 



IS^OTES ON NEW PLANTS. 



CONVOLVULUS MAUEITANICUS. 



A highly ornamental and drooping half- 

 shrubby plant, of a neat well-brauched and 

 slender habit, with roundish oblong leaves, 

 and a profusion of very elegant light blue 

 blossoms, upwards of an Inch in width, 

 forming an admirable plant for suspended 

 baskets or vases ; also an unique and effec- 

 tive bedding plant, or carpet-like belt for 

 surrounding flower-beds, and a charming 

 object for rock-work and flower-garden 

 baskets. Its gracefully procumbent growth 

 is seen to great advantage when planted on 

 the top of small mounds, by which its pic- 

 turesque porcelain-blue blossoms are con- 

 spicuously beautiful. The plants require 

 protection in a greenhouse or pit, and in 

 the early spring season It should be cut 

 back, and as its dense growth breaks at 

 every joint, it blooms profusely from the 



corresponding shoots at each axil and side 

 branch ; by thus obtaining a free and luxu- 

 riant growth, it will prove a charming 

 plant for almost every desirable position in 

 flower-gardens and conservatories where 

 favourably exposed to light. Its free and 

 long-continued bloom will prove its value 

 in adding to the desirable variety of plants 

 for the purposes above-named. [Messrs. 

 E. G. Henderson and Sons. Price 2*. 6;/. 

 and 5s.] 



DIANTHUS HVBEinnS MULTIFLOEUS. 



This is a perpetual-flowering mule pink, 

 it differs from other allied kinds in Its more 

 perennial and frutescent style of growth at 

 the base, with the still more desirable 

 feature of maturing a succe.ssIon of flower- 

 scapes up to the latest period of the year, 

 and unfolding them in bloom during the 



