1869.] NEW HARDY AZALEAS. 97 



NEW HARDY AZALEAS. 



WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 



|AEDY Azaleas are amongst the sweetest and most brilliant of the flowering 

 American shrubs which render our garden scenes so enchanting in the 

 )s^2 merry month of May. Forty years ago the original species and their 

 y immediate progeny, might be seen yielding their masses of golden and 

 fiery and roseate hue. to lighten the dark masses of evergreen Rhododendrons 

 with which, then as now, they were commonly associated. After that the Con- 

 tinental cultivators took up the improvement of the Azalea, and the Ghent 

 varieties of some twenty years since revived for a while its popularity ; but with 

 the onward march of fashion it seems to have been again left in the rear, and 

 for the most part unheeded by the masses, though not uncared for by those who 

 knew its worth. Hence we were not surprised, some two or three years since, 

 on visiting the Knaphill Nurseries, one of the earlier and still one of the most 

 pleasant homes of " American plants," to find that the breeding of improved 

 Azaleas had been for some time going on quietly, and that, as a result, a number 

 of novelties of sterling merit had been obtained. It is two of these which we 

 now figure, by permission of Mr. Anthony Waterer. 



These grand acquisitions, which occur in considerable variety of colouring, 

 are, as we understand, partly the result of a judicious intermixture of sinensis 

 blood, and partly the result of selection and of seeding on from the best varieties. 

 Not only the quality of the flowers but the habit of the plant has been cared for, 

 and in this way have been secured varieties which combine with larger, more 

 brilliant, and better-shaped flowers, a vigour of growth which enables them to 

 develop their blossoms freely. The new sorts have this further recommenda- 

 tion, that instead of blooming early, and having in great measure faded before 

 their associates the Rhododendrons come into flower, they bloom contem- 

 poraneously with the latter, and it need scarcely be pointed out that their 

 brilliant tints, of orange and red especially, are particularly valuable from the 

 fine contrast they present with the colours familiar amongst Rhododendrons. 

 Their early blooming habit was in fact one of the chief drawbacks of the 

 primitive Azaleas of our boyhood, and this is now in great measure removed 

 by the introduction of Mr. Wateref's new varieties. 



"We may also mention that in the same collection are some wonderfully fine 

 double-flowered varieties. One which we particularly noticed,' an exquisite shaded 

 orange, was much brighter and more attractive than the well-known Van Houttei. 



Our fig. 1 on the annexed plate represents a charming variety, named 

 Nancy Waterer. It is of vigorous growth, producing contemporaneously with 

 its leaves, fine trusses of deep orange-yellow flowers, which are larger and richer 

 coloured than in any yellow previously obtained, the colouring being most intense 

 in the three upper segments. In this, the flowers are fully two inches across, 



3rd Series. — u. f 



