1870.] GARDEN RECORDS. 177 



single glance was sufficient to show the extent of variation now to be seen among 

 them. Some years ago, and a red leaf-stalked Primula would be certain to pro- 

 duce rosy purple-coloured flowers, and plants with a white leaf-stalk, white 

 flowers. The work of improvement has changed this, and now a plant with red 

 leaf-stalks will be found to produce flowers of the purest white, though high- 

 coloured flowers have not as yet appeared on plants beai'ing white leaf-stalks. 

 Also, all striped flowers — and of these there are now some very beautiful things 

 — are borne by plants having leaf-stalks of the darkest colour. Let us note a few 

 distinct types of variation : one plant with white leaf-stalks bore flowers tinted 

 with rose, the edges slightly deeper ; there were also two very pleasant carmine 

 rose-coloured flowers, one deeper than the other, and these appear to invert the 

 usual rule of high-coloured Primulas— for, instead of opening of a bright tint, 

 which becomes pale as the flowers age, these open pale-coloured, which intensi- 

 fies as the flowers become older. One of these also had very handsome fern- 

 leaved foliage. Then there were flowers of very deep crimson-purple hues, and 

 some white as the driven snow. There was a grand strain of white flowers, the 

 habit of the plant unusually dwarf and compact, with noble trusses of flowers 

 shown well above the foliage. Then there were white flowers, having the usual 

 lemon-coloured eye, but unusually large ; and round this was a dark-brown ring, 

 not unlike the cup of a pheasant-eyed Narciss ; flowers of varying tints also had 

 the dark ring. Blush flowers- — really blush flowers, not merely become so from 

 age — were very fine indeed, of large size, fine substance, stout, and splendidly 

 fringed; and there were also varying shades of these — some only delicately 

 tinted, others much more deeply. 



In addition to Primulas, there were in this house a lot of standard plants of 

 Unique Pelargoniums, on stems from 18 to 30 inches in length, some as much as 

 three years old, and in bloom all the year round. They are found invaluable for 

 table-decoration. There was to be noticed much variation of colour among them, 

 from rich blood-crimsoned hues to tints of bright lilac. Mr Windebank informed 

 us that many of these were sports, and that the Unique Pelargoniums were 

 found to be singularly sportive in character; and what is more singular, they also 

 sport into different types of foliage. One plant had on one side of the large head 

 deep crimson flowers, on the other pale violet. This class of Pelargoniums are 

 always of great use for furnishing cut flowers. 



In a lean-to Peach-house were a capital lot of Aucubas, covered with berries, 

 and a fine lot of Lilium auratum starting into growth. We were informed that 

 they are kept all the year round in pots, and only shaken out when re- 

 potted. As raisers of variegated Pelargoniums, Messrs Windebank and Kings- 

 bury are well known, they having originated since very fine kinds, which have 

 been distributed by others. One of their gold-and-bronze varieties — The Rev. 

 W. F. Radclyffe — bears an excellent character as an effective bedder; but this 

 they have recently improved upon in a variety named Russell Gurney, which 

 we saw, and very promising indeed it looked. This was in a long, low span- 

 roofed house used for propagating purposes, and in which there were great 

 quantities of young bedding plants of various kind. 



Leaving the Bevois Mount Nurseries — the locality being noted in the ' Chroni- 

 cles of Southampton ' as the scene of the doings of the once-famed Sir Bevis, and 

 the giant Ascupart, and whose full-length portraits can be seen in the old Bargate 

 of Southampton — we proceeded to the Bevois Valley Nursery, immediately con- 

 tiguous to the river Itchen, and liable, from its low situation, to be occasionally 

 inundated by the overflow of the sea. Here we found a span-roofed house en- 

 tirely filled on the one side with Primulas, on the other with variegated Pelar- 



M 



