202 THE PLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



Rose-pinh. — Let us glance at another section — say the rosy-pink 

 class. There are now hundreds of varieties with pink flowers, and a 

 few of them are excellent bedders. Not long since, we were glad of 

 Helen Lindsay, Mrs. Wuitty, and some others that surprised us by 

 their colour, but which have proved rather shy iu flowering out of 

 doors. For coloui', profuse flowering, neat dwarf habit, and hardy 

 constitution, there is no geranium iu this section to equal Madame 

 Barre ; it is a better colour even than Helen Lindsay, which used to 

 be the richest, though the shyest, in this section. It has the bad 

 quality, however, of shedding its flowers during gales and heavy 

 raius, so that, after a few days' bad weather, beds filled with it look 

 rather poor; but it produces such abundance of flowers, that a few 

 days of sunshine make it right again, and it glows as bright as ever. 

 There is a good old variety in this section that we cannot now do 

 without — it is the well-known Christine. All the breeders have 

 tried their hands at raising a geranium to beat Christine, but none 

 have succeeded yet. It is very faulty, yet very good. Its greatest 

 fault is the immense quantity of seeds it produces ; if these are not 

 assiduously removed, the beds acquire a most unsightly appearance, 

 and the plants get exhausted and go out of bloom. The good qua- 

 lities are, a dwarf habit, most profuse flowering, a good, cheerful 

 colour, and a capability of thriving on almost any kind of soil. 

 After these two, we may find several good varieties with pink 

 flowers — such as Beaute des Suresnes, a truly magnificent kind, 

 which, to tell the truth, is almost too good to plant in beds, and has 

 been hitherto generally grown in exhibition collections as a pot 

 plant. "Where the climate is warm, and the soil rather light, how- 

 ever, it may be planted out with perfect safety, and it will make 

 superb masses. Princess Alexandra, in the style of Christine, 

 flowers very profusely, and is, for a time, more attractive than any 

 other in this class ; but it makes seeds so fast that, before the 

 season is over, it becomes a nuisance ; and, moreover, it is apt, after 

 making a tremendous blaze, to go out of bloom altogether by about 

 the 1st of August. Pink Beauty, Rose Reudatler, Rose Queen, and 

 Minnie are all good bedders, the last two being of a paler shade of 

 colour than Christine. 



Furple. — Let us next look at the purples ; and, before naming 

 the best, it may be well for those who know Purple Nosegay and 

 Mrs. Vernon to call to mind what are their qualities of growth and 

 bloom. Having done so, look at a fair-sized plant of Amy Hogg 

 when in full bloom, and, by the contrast, measure the advances made 

 in the improvement of geraniums within the past few years. The 

 late Mr. Beaton, who was the most successful breeder of these 

 things in modern times, left us no better legacy than Amy Hogg ; 

 for, though it is not equal to Stella or Cybister in the profusion of 

 its flowers, the predominance of blue iu the colouring is a march in 

 the right direction, and the flower is a great gain. In this section 

 we must place Lord Palmerston, in whose complexion there is but 

 a trace of blue, yet enough to justify me in classifying it with the 

 purple section. 



Crimson. — It is an easy transition to Imperial Crimson, Merri- 



