26 



THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



climbers in plenty. Laure Davoust, 

 classed above as a multiflora, is in 

 reality a hybrid, though showing a 

 predominance of the multiflora cha- 

 racter. Ilenoux is a very showy 

 crimson rose, which makes a fine 

 covering for an arch or portico. 

 Madame d'Arblai/, pure white, flower- 

 ing in immense clusters, is invaluable 

 for its beauty and rapid growth. It 

 is almost a sempervirens. Wood's 

 Garland, lilac and blush, sometimes 

 opening white and changing to pink, 

 is a free growing climber, producing 



fragrant flowers in large clusters, and 

 in habit closely related to the semper- 

 virens. Prairie roses are of no use at 

 all. The Queen of the Prairies will 

 succeed in a few chosen spots, and is 

 worth growing, though of very poor 

 quality ; but as it cannot be recom- 

 mended fur general use, and is quite 

 unfit for the ordinary wear and tear 

 to which roses must submit in this 

 country, we can afford to dismiss it 

 with the rest of its race, as unworthy 

 of further notice. 



REMINISCENCES OF AX OLD EERN-GEOWER. 



When the blinds are drawn, the lamp 

 lit, and the fire burning bonnily, what 

 so pleasant, on one of these long win- 

 ter nights, as to turn back a few of 

 the pages of one's life, and recall some 

 of the incidents of years which have long 

 since passed away. I am afraid I of- 

 ten indulge in these reminiscences, and 

 get so absorbed by my own thoughts 

 that the fire might die out upon the 

 hearth, the lamp go untrimmed, and 

 the clock point to hours when one 

 ought to be quietly stowed away in 

 bed, were it not for a loving voice 

 which calls one back to the realities 

 of the present. I was last evening 

 thinking over the progress which has 

 been made since I was a boy in fern- 

 growing, and as, perchance, some of 

 those wandering thoughts which came 

 into my head might have a trifle of 

 interest for others, I will jot down a 

 few of them. 



Let me see — what was it that set 

 me a-thinking ? Oh, Irecollect now, 

 I had been carelessly turning over 

 the pages of an old copy of Loudon's 

 " Hortus Britannicus," when my eye 

 happened to fall upon the name of the 

 last new fern I had added to my col- 

 lection — the little North American 

 Xiphopteris serrulata. Curiosity led 

 me to look down the list a little more 

 closely. The book was published in 

 1830, and I found that about 370 

 ferns were enumerated as being then 

 in cultivation. Doubtless they had 



been all introduced alive, and had for 

 a time been grown, but how many of 

 them had been lost before the revived 

 taste for these plants had arisen ? I 

 should think we might safely aver 

 that half of them had been allowed 

 to perish, and have needed to be again 

 imported. Some of the names in- 

 cluded in that list are those of the 

 rarest ferns we have at the present 

 day. How many specimens are there 

 in the country, except that splendid 

 one at Kew, of that noble Pteris (or 

 as we should call it now-a-days, 

 Litobrochia) podophylla? Gymno- 

 gramma trifoliata, that distinct, tall 

 growing. Epilobium-like,West Indian 

 fern which we recollect being intro- 

 duced as a great novelty from 

 Jamaica about five or six years ago, 

 is down in the list. And so is Dick- 

 sonia arborpscens, a rare tree-fern 

 from St. Helena, which few collec- 

 tions can boast of even now. Five 

 species of Gieichenia are mentioned 

 as having been introduced between 

 1822-4 ; they may be found in most 

 good gardens now, but ten or twelve 

 years ago I would have walked 

 twenty miles to have seen one. There 

 are some plants down in that list 

 which it would be pleasant to find 

 once more generally grown ; there 

 are, perhaps, in the whole family no 

 two genera of greater interest than 

 Lindseea and Schizeea, there are five 

 or six species of each of these men- 



