February 6, 1909 



HORTICULTUHi: 



169 



European Horticulture 



THE MASTERS IIEMOKIAL LECTURES 



The Royal Horticultural Soc-iety has arranged with 

 Professor Hugo de Vries to deliver two lectures during 

 1909 in connection with the fund raised as a memorial 

 to the late Dr. Maxwell Tylden Masters. The first lec- 

 ture \vdll be delivered on June 82, the subject being 

 "Masters' Vegetable Teratology." The second lecture 

 on '"The Production of Varieties" will be given by Prof, 

 de Vries on September 28. The lectures will be deliv- 

 ered in the lecture room of the Hall, St. Vincent Square, 

 Westminster, at 3 P. M. 



GLOXINIA HYBRIDA GRANDIFLORA CIRCE 



Contrariwise to the modern gloxinia varieties the 

 novelty Circe carries its flowers horizontally. More- 

 over the markings in the throat of the flower show 

 tliemselves by this position in their full beauty. The 

 ■ variety comes fairly true from seed, and its leafage is 

 of the true crassifolia type of the present day. The 

 flowers are borne on stiff strong stalks, possess a diam- 

 eter of 10 c. m. and they are slightly waved at the 

 edges. They are white with an azure blue tinge, and 

 with throat marking of a purple tint running into blue, 

 and reddish dots at base. 



A NEV? DISEASE OF THE ROSE 



Mr. H. T. Gusson gives in the Royal Horticultural 

 Society's Journal an account of a new disease of roses, 

 that the gardener will have to contend with. The new 

 disease which Mr. Gusson shows to be due to a fungus, 

 Coniothyrium Fuckelii, begins its attack on the one- 

 year old shoots, and is not readily recognized till it is 

 well advanced. The flrst signs consist in purplish or 

 red brown spots on the rind. He thinks it is a wound 

 parasite, and he recommends the cutting out or removal 

 of the aifected shoot and dressing the wound with creo- 

 soted wood pitch. 



JUBILEE FLOWER SHOVF AT HAARLEM IN 1910 



It has now been definitely fixed that the opening of 

 this great show will take place on March 23, 1910. The 

 show will consist of a permanent exhibition in the open 

 air, and three temporary ones in buildings. It is ex- 

 pected to afford a good idea of the commercial horticul- 

 ture of Holland. Of the temporary shows the first will 

 be held at Eastertide; the second in the middle of April 

 — that is in the height of the bulb season ; and the third 

 in the early days of May. Queen Wilhelmina and the 

 Queen mother are patronesses of the Society; and the 

 show will celebrate the 50th year of its existence. 



CONTINENTAL HORTICULTURAL ITEMS 



In 1908 a State Department for Horticulture was 

 established in Belgium and this fact was received with 

 pleasure in Great Britain, where it is felt that the gar- 

 deners and horticulturists may likewise look forward 

 to further recognition by the state of the importance 

 of the science and business of horticulture. A chair of 

 Forestry was established last year at Oxford, and there 

 are aspirations amongst gardeners that a chair for 

 Horticulture may also be institiited at one or more of 

 the universities. The French system of intensive mar- 

 ket gardening has "caught on" in England, and a few 

 public companies have already been formed and large 



sums of monev laid out in establishing such market 

 gardens. 



MUSHROOM CULTURE BY THE LATEST METHODS 



The production of mushroom spawn has until recent 

 years been of a clumsy, uncertain character, and more 

 or less uncertain in results, since the mycelium of other 

 fungi than Agaricus campestris, the common mush- 

 room, has occasionally been mistaken for it to the chagrin 

 and loss of the cultivator. A method of manufacturing 

 virgin mushroom spawn by artificially germinating the 

 spores was discovered in 1897 and the mycelium ob- 

 tained was sold in test tubes by the makers. This was 

 a forward step, and mushroom cultivators were enabled 

 for the first time to be fairly certain that the spawn 

 they bought would produce the variety of mushroom 

 they desired. This method, however, had its disadvan- 

 tages, and hopes were expressed that a better one might 

 be discovered. Some years later, the process by which 

 Messrs. Sutton & Sons manufacture their "20th Cen- 

 tury Mushroom Spawn" was adopted. This method is 

 now known as "tissue culture" and originated in the 

 discovery that mycelium could be engendered from a 

 portion of the mushroom itself. The possibility of this 

 is the underlying principle of the new culture. By this 

 method it is stated that not only can the growers be 

 quite certain that the spawn they buy is true to name, 

 but also that the improvement of varieties by selection 

 is for the first time made possible, and it is a fact that 

 . the yield has already been greatly increased. 



A REMARKABLE PLANT HYBRID 



An illustration appeared in the "Gardeners' Cliron- 

 icle" on January 23, last, of a hybrid raised by Mr. C. 

 G. van Tubergen, Jr., Haarlem, by crossing Brunsrigia 

 Josephinae and Amaryllis Belladonna. Mr. van Tuber- 

 gen states that principally with a view of ascertaining 

 the parentage of the Kew variety of Amaryllis Bella- 

 donna, in the autumn of 1892 he artificially impreg- 

 nated the above named Brunsrigia with the pollen of 

 Amaryllis Belladonna, and as the two genera are very 

 closely related, seeds were formed freely. As could be 

 foreseen with the slow growing Brunsrigia Josephinae 

 for the seed parent, a long time had to elapse before the 

 seedling plants would be strong enough to flower. Af- 

 ter an interval of sixteen years two of the strongest bulbs 

 produced flowering spikes in September of last year. 

 AVhen the hybrid plants had been cultivated for several 

 years, it became evident they differed in habit from 

 the Kew variety of Amaryllis Belladonna, which produces 

 a leaf-stem of about four inches in height ; whereas, the 

 van Tubergen hybrids all bear the character of Bruns- 

 rigia Josephinae in the foliage, leaves being formed di- 

 rectly above the neck of the bulbs. The bulbs show the 

 infusion of the Amaryllis blood and have a resemblance 

 to A. Belladonna, and produce offsets freely, which 

 Brunsrigia never does. A comparison of the supple- 

 mentary illustration in the Gardeners' Chronicle for 

 January 23, drawn from an inflorescence sent from 

 Mr. van Tubergen's garden with the engraving in the 

 "Garden," November 19, 1898, leads to the conclusion 

 that the Kew plant can no longer be regarded as a hy- 

 brid between these species, unless it was a cross effected 

 in the reverse way, taking A. Belladonna as the seed- 

 bearer. In that case the variety Clauda must have been 

 used, it being the only variety of A. Belladonna known, 

 that produces a leaf stem. The color of the flowers of 

 the hybrid was a clear deep rose suffused with carmine. 

 A single spike bore twenty-two flowers. 



