10. THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



in any part of a garden where too much sunshine did not prevail. 

 Excessive solar heat is inimical to the flower, producing that abhor- 

 rent pest, the red spider, when the plant is ruined for the season, 

 syringe him or soap him as you will. This arrangement should be 

 skilfully concerted as to gradations in growth and colour : the latter 

 might be arranged in circles, or shaded from the centre to the 

 edge, or in alternate contrasts of dark and light. A sloping bank 

 also planted on similar principles would produce a new and charm- 

 ing spectacle. Some kind of fuchsias, of a running and vigorous 

 growth, would prove an interesting appendage to rockeries and 

 grotto work, being planted at their base in a pocket of rich soil, 

 and their long shoots fixed in festoons here and there to prevent 

 their stalks, Avhich are very brittle, from being broken by the 

 wind. The same kinds might be used for training up columns 

 and door-posts, two or three of various colours being intertwined. 

 There are many varieties of pendulous habit, which form the best 

 basket plants for any positions where basket plants are in character. 

 Indeed, wherever the fuchsia is applied it must always delight any 

 eye possessing an appreciation of the beauty of colour and elegance 

 of form. 



Perhaps it is not too much to assert that there has been little 

 real advancement in the properties of the fuchsia during late years. 

 I am heretic enough to consider the double varieties a mistake, seeing 

 nothing to admire in confused and crumpled-up corollas ; and to 

 believe those more recent flat monstrosities, resembling some crushed 

 entomological curiosities, simply as enormities as discreditable to 

 those who raise as to those who buy them. In all kinds I have observed 

 an increased tendency to coarseness of texture and dulness in colour 

 of the sepals, quite opposite to the wax-like and varnished surface 

 which is a primary quality in a first-rate fuchsia. The same degene- 

 racy is apparent in the kinds with white corollas, which are, more- 

 over, constitutionally weak. There are few good whites ; the sepals 

 are almost all impure, and tipped with green. 



The year when Souvenir de Chiswick and Bo-peep came out, 

 appears among fuchsias to correspond with the memorable year 18G2 

 among roses. We then received some of the best kinds we have in 

 cultivation. In most particulars, Souvenir de Chiswick is the best 

 type of fuchsia known ; its curved sepals are perfect, its corolla is 

 well formed, and of a beautiful colour ; its foliage is fine, and has 

 originated all the varieties possessing yellow variegation in the leaf. 

 The only drawback is, that its colour is not so intensely scarlet as it 

 might be. Bo-peep is the type of another excellent kind — the 

 sepals sharply thrown back, the corolla somewhat expanded, but 

 well shaped, and the growth short-jointed and robust. Wonderful 

 is the best model of that style of flower where the sepals reflex in 

 the extreme. There are appended here a few names of favourites 

 of my own, with a slight notice of the purposes for which they are 

 suitable. Some may consider them out of date ; but a poet has 

 written, "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;" and this is true of 

 many old flowers. 



Cartoni, small scarlet flower, dark corolla, profuse bloomer, sepals 



