240 THE GARDENER. [May 



GLASGOW AND WEQT OF SCOTLAND HORTICUL- 

 TURAL SOCIETY. 



The spring show of this Society took place last week in the City Hall. The 

 weather was propitious, and the exhibition was made up of some very choice 

 materials, Dutch bulbs forming the staple. Never before in Glasgow were 

 there so many good Hyaciutha shown; indeed, it is a matter of wonder, ex- 

 pressed even by the Dutch growers, how well the flowering properties of these 

 bulbs are brought out by the gardeners of this country. In the open and 

 nurserymen's classes Mr P. M'Kenzie can-ied off the palm with some very 

 fine specimens; and from his collections were selected the first and second 

 best Hyacinths in the exhibition. In the gardeners' classes there was much 

 more excitement and considerably more rivalry, in some cases not fewer than 

 twelve di£Perent lots competed for the awards. It is due to Mr N. Glass, 

 gardener to Mr Bolton of Carbrook, Mr J. Sutlierland, gardener to Mr Denny, 

 Dumbarton, and Mr Mackay, gardener to Mr Reid, Rutherglen, to say that 

 their respective lots were well gi-own, well selected, and well staged. "When 

 we come to individualise, we find the old sorts that took position ten years ago 

 Btill prominent, beating many of the higher-priced rivals of modern introduction. 

 There is nothing finer in whites than Alba maxima and Mont Blanc, unless it be 

 Snowball, which lacks in strength of spike what it gains in substance and size of 

 flower. Among deep redy. Koh-i-noor, Lord Macaulay, and Von Schiller stand 

 out boldly among their fellows ; and in the various shades of blue we have Maria, 

 Charles Dickens, and Grand Lilas — all flowers that one sees in every winning 

 stand, and such as ought to recommend themselves to all interested in the culture 

 of Hyacinths. Curiously enough, the double-flowered sorts which the florist is 

 anxious to encourage, and the botanist to discourage, cannot at all approach in 

 point of excellence their single rivals, unless it be a blush called Duke of Welling- 

 ton, and a blue one, looking like a Delphinium, called Garrick. Of the amateur 

 class, which labours under difiiculties, and even in the midst of city smoke 

 triumphs in the cultivation of bulbs, Messrs Robertson, J. H. Sharpe, and 

 Wilkie, all from the Hutchesontown district of the city, not only took prizes, but 

 earned them meritoriously. The Tulips were quite marked plants, while the 

 Narcissi and Croci were an exhibition of themselves. The king of the bulb race 

 is the Brazilian Amaryllis, the tall scapes and large and prominent flowers of 

 which invest these bulbs with no small importance. It was here but sparsely 

 shown, the best lots coming from Messrs Fleming and Sutherland. 



Among the miscellaneous hard-wooded plants, the Azaleas claimed paramount 

 attention ; but their great pyramids of colour would have been relieved by the 

 arching fronds of Tree Ferns, or some of the choicer foliage plants that have 

 beauty of foliation and outline to recommend them. The collections from Mr 

 Boyd, gardener to Mr Finlay of Easterhill, and Mr R. Caskie, gardener to Mr 

 A. Graham, Thornvvood, were closely matched. Heaths, Epacris, and some of 

 the choicer Orchids, were only indifferently contested for, the best plant of a purely 

 bridal Orchid (Coelog^'ue cristata) being furnished by Mr Jas. Forbes, Beachwood. 

 New Holland plants came very well handled, the Chorozemas, with their wreaths 

 of showy orange and scarlet leguminous flowers, deservedly attracting notice, as 

 did the catkin-like inflorescence of the various Acacias, wliich were numerous and 

 well grown. Not the least decorative plant of easy culture, which any citizen 

 with a greenhouse, however small, could manage, was the Deutzia gracillis. The 

 flowers of this plant are sometimes mistaken for Orange blossoms, and they come 



