96 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



FOREIGN NOTICES. 



Last Exhibition of the Londov IIorti- 

 cuLTi'iiAi. SoriKTY. — Tlio visit of Tbriiliirn Pa- 

 cha last Saturday to the Great Exhibition in tlie 

 (iarilon of the llorticiiltural Society will, we trust, 

 I>rove as beneficial to K^ypt as it was interesting 

 to himself. F'or the gratification of those who 

 wish to know the eftect proiiuceiluiion tlie mind of 

 the African Prince by so extraorilinary a disjilay 

 of what he could never have previously seen, or 

 imagined the existence of, we may state that his 

 Highness was delighted by the spectacle. The 

 Pelargoniums, large specimen plants, Cacti, and 

 Heaths, apiiearcd to be viewed with great admira- 

 tion, for, uiHin being asked whiclj of them he 

 would be desirous of taking back to Egypt, he cast 

 a rai)id glance over the mass of llowcrs, paused 

 for a moment, and, throwing up his arms, exclaim- 

 ed, <'AI1, all." The Pinks and Ranunculuses, with 

 which he was familiar as natives of the East, 

 were viewed with pleasure, as were the beds of 

 Roses. In examining the fruit, Peaches and Nec- 

 tarines, a few of the Pines, and the noble Straw- 

 berries most excited his admiration, but he had 

 seen liner Cherries than any before him. How 

 much the Pine-Ajiples weighed, how many per- 

 sons would come, how many tickets 'were sold, 

 how much money was given away in prizes, and 

 similar statistical inquiries, seemed most to en- 

 gage his serious attention. He was evidently 

 much gratified at his reception by Lord Auckland 

 on the part of the Society, and by the attention he 

 received from the noble Earl, and Lord Normanby, 

 who accompanied him during the whole of his 

 stay ; and he quitted the gay scene most unwil- 

 /ingly at half-i)ast 2, on his way to Birmingham, 

 expressing his great regret that the necessity of his 

 arrangements left him no alternative. Had the Pa- 

 cha known that between 13,000 and 14,000 visitors 

 would have thronged to the Garden in the after- 

 noon, of whom at least two-thirds would be 

 charmingly dressed women, we suspect that his 

 regret would;, iiave proved the master of his ne- 

 cessity. 



With respect to the Exhibition itself, we may 

 slate that although the gay Azaleas of I\Iay were 

 missed by everybody, yet that the general ef- 

 fect was as good as ever. The Pelargoniums 

 were in their glory. Orchids were magnificent : 

 who, for instance, ever beheld such a bank of 

 these plants as was this time brought from Mr. 

 Rucker's garden, among which was an Aeridcs 

 odoratum, to have jjroduced which alone would 

 have made the reputation of any gardener. Then 

 the fruit, which was so meagre in May, did ho- 

 nor to the skill of English gardeners, and so the 

 Pacha seemed to think, although, from the remarks 

 of a correspondent in another column, it appears 

 that the judges were of a dilTcrent opinion. The 

 Heaths were better than before, and a single plant 

 of Erica ventricosa purpurea, from th« garden of 

 Sir George Staunton, was as fine a thing in its way 

 as the Cyrtopod of the previous exhibition. Of 



such things as these wc can only say that high 

 gardening can go no furtluT. 



More novelties were jiresent than before. The 

 Royal liotiinic Garden at Kew sent the charming 

 Torenia asiatica, whose indigo stained flowers 

 everybody stopped to admire, although by some 

 oversight it had not been properly marked. Mr. 

 Voitch furnislied a beautiful little long-sjjurred Bal- 

 sam from .Java, with /Eschynanthus pulcher, a good 

 and new form of that fine genus. 



Considering that the thermometer had stood 

 near 82'^ for the i>revious fortnight, that it ranged 

 as high as 86*^ in the shade and !)7° in the sun, 

 during the Exhibition, and that the plants can 

 hardly be said to have felt it, so fresh anil unflag- 

 ging was their appearance, wc should wish to ask, 

 how we are to measure the skill of the exhibitors 

 who had successfully contended with such adverse 

 circumstances ? 



There were no accidents among the ocean of 

 carriages, but it took a long time to find the lat- 

 ter, so that either from that circumstance, or an 

 unwillingness to leave the coolness of the garden 

 for the heat of London, many visitors lingered till 

 the evening had nearly closed in. The exact 

 number of visitors was 13,421, exclusive of su- 

 pernumeraries. — Gardener's Chron., June 20. 



SoLANUM LTCI0IDE9. Lycium-like Solanum. 

 Greenhouse Shrub. (Nightshades.) Peru. — This 

 charming shrub was found by Mr. Hartweg, in the 

 valley of San Antonio, in Peru, and flowered in the 

 Garden of the Horticultural Society in November, 

 1845. It has a neat habit; the flowers are of the 

 richest sapphire purple, enlivened by a bright yel- 

 low eye, and in the wild state appear in clusters, so 

 as to load the little spiny branches. The name is a 

 happy one, for in its natural state it is very much 

 like a dwarf Lycium barbarum. In cultivation, 

 however, it loses some of its stiff spiny habit, and 

 has hitherto not j'ielded flowers in clusters; but they 

 are larger than in the wild state. It is by no means 

 new to Europe, for it was represented in Jacquin's 

 Figures of Rare Plants, above sixty years since; 

 but it has disappeared from the gardens of this 

 country. So very poor, pale blue a variety was in- 

 deed at that time jiossessed, that it hardly deserved 

 to be preserved even in a botanic garden. It is 

 found to be a greenhouse plant that succeeds in al- 

 most any kind of soil, but to prefer a sandy loam, 

 mixed with a little rough peat. To flower it well, 

 it seems necessary to place it out of doors during 

 summer, in some exposed situation where it can re- 

 main till the end of September. By that time the 

 flower buds will be formed, and they expand in a 

 short time after the plant is taken indoors. It is easi- 

 ly propagated from cuttings, and must be regarde<l 

 as a good addition to our autumn flowering green- 

 house shrubs. — Botanical Resiister. 



AcHiMENES PATENS. Spreading Achimenes. 

 Green-house Herbaceous Plant. (Gesnerads.) 



