JANUARY. 17 



At any rate, it is much to be regretted that the Horticultural 

 Society in London abandoned its culture, owing to the delicacy of the 

 plant. 



I shall be delighted if you will kindly favour me with an answer 

 [I wrote by return of post. — W. P. R.], and if I can be of service to 

 you in this country, please communicate with me freely. 

 I am, reverend and dear Sir, 



Yours very respectfully, 



Ferdinand Gloede. 

 I make no apology for sending you the above interesting and friendly 

 letter. Mr. May, of Blandford, read it, and said, " I cordially agree 

 with him. It is evident to me he knows what he is writing about." 



W. F. Radclyffe. 

 R us hi 'on. 



LONICERA FRAGRANTISSIMA. 



Many of your readers who are enabled to secure to themselves the 

 gratification of flowers during the summer, must feel it a great depri- 

 vation to be suddenly robbed of the objects of their joy and care, by 

 the ungenial influences which winter brings ; and those amateurs 

 who have no conservatory, and who are unaware of the existence of 

 hardy winter blooming plants, have, I presume, to content themselves 

 with the recollections of the gay things of summer, or at best to seek 

 some solace in the care of pet plants, cherished in some tiny glazed box 

 or window frame. I can quite imagine that mariy of your fair readers, 

 who were wont to fill their vases daily with flowers, find after the 

 decay of the Chrysanthemum, and the few lingering Rosebuds (a 

 legacy which the Queen of flowers still leaves us), that further attempts 

 at floral ornamentation are futile, and, with a sigh, relinquish the 

 task. To such, I am sure the plant which I wish to recommend to 

 their notice will be a boon indeed. The hardy winter blooming Honey- 

 suckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, has not the beauty of some of its 

 compeers, but then it has all and more of their sweetness, and it 

 blossoms in December, when large gay exposed flowers would be 

 rent and torn by the blasts of winter. Its flowers come out coyly in 

 pairs. Four pairs of flowers are commonly produced from the axil of 

 every leaf ; and the pairs of blooms are seated on slender little stalks, 

 just long enough to enable each little flower to expand. The flower 

 has not a long tube, like the common Honeysuckle, but blooms within 

 the protection of the leaf, which remains green and strong during the 

 winter. When nearly all the other flowers have perished and gone 

 from the parterre, and winter reigns, this little plant begins to bud and 

 bloom, and to make merry ; it does not expand its delicate waxy 

 white little blooms all at once, like its gay flaunting, but still hand- 

 some friend, Jasminum nudiflorum ; but from November it is never 

 without its charmingly fragrant blossoms. The sweetness of the 

 common Honeysuckle, combined with the subdued odour of Orange 

 blossom, is the nearest approach to a description of its fragrance that I 

 VOL. XII., no. cxxxiii. c 



