1885.J 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



351 



crinitum, a kind with a sort of cabbage leaf tex- 

 ture of frond, covered with dense black bristles, 

 and there was a green and not gray form of the 

 Stag's-liorn fern, and the rare illustration of the 

 same genus in Platycerium grande, with the 

 barren fronds running into the fertile, and which 

 gives one of the peculiarities to this pretty species, i 



In the collection of Mr. W. Joyce, gardener to 

 Mrs. M. W. Baldwin, we noted particularly a 

 specimen of the Chusan palm, Chremerops For- 

 tunii. It was a bushy specimen about 5x4 feet, 

 and has a sort of " Bambooy " look in its narrow 

 frondlets. It is said to be capable of withstanding 

 several degrees of frost. Mr. Joyce is famous for 

 the e.xcellent manner in which he grows the pretty 

 feather-leaved Marantas. A plant of M. Porteana 

 about 2 feet by 2, had a dense mass of leaves 

 overlapping each other like shingles on a barn. 

 The old-fashioned M. vittata, which few people 

 can grow well, was here in a specimen about 3 

 feet by 3. The strange class of plants allied to 

 the Sago, and known as Encephalartos, and which 

 are getting popular, for all their scarcity, was re- 

 presented here by E. villosus. The fronds are only 

 about 12 inches wide, but were 5 or 6 feet long. 

 They look like fern leaves turned to blue stone. 



The old style of growing Caladmms in deep 

 shade and moist heat, by which the leaves were 

 drawn and the colors dull, is being abandoned, 

 and the bright and stocky specimens here ex- 

 hibited proves it. There were so many good 

 ones, the judges must have had a hard time to de- 

 cide which was the best collection. 



A specimen of Mons. A. Hardy, which we re- 

 gard as one of the brightest and best, had over 

 seventy-five leaves, and was about 3 feet by 3. 

 Cho is another variety that struck our fancy. The 

 same exhibtor, Mr. Warne, gardener to Clarence 

 H. Clark, Esq., had a specimen of the well-known 

 dwarf kind, C. argyrites, in a pan about 2}i feet 

 over, and which we should hardly like to be set to 

 count the leaves, under penalty to finish it in a 

 quarter of an hour. Speaking of the Encepha- 

 lartos tribe, and Sago palms, Mr. John Dick, Jr., 

 had one of the family in Zamia glaucum, that at- 

 tracted much attention. 



The absence of flowering plants came near be- 

 ing atoned for in a collection of leaf Begonias by 

 John W. Metz. The improvement in these pretty 

 plants seems to have fallen off, yet they are lovely 

 — a kind known as Pierre Walter, though not 

 new, would make a grand exhibition plant, if 

 taken in hand and grown well. And H. A. Dreer 

 brought us up to the point of admiration by actual 



flowering plants of the tuberous Begonias. Florists 

 have given up naming varieties, as from seed no 

 two are alike. The kinds are as infinite as a lot 

 of Pansies. These of Dreer were about 50, in 6- 

 inch pots, all different and beautiful. 



H. A. Dreer had also some novelties in his col- 

 lection. There were a variegated Bougainvillea, 

 and the old variegated Hydrangea, scarce enough 

 now to be " novel," and a pretty aroid named Phyl- 

 lotasnia Lindeni. It was in a lo-inch pot with about 

 50 leaves each, 6 to 10 inches long, and the white 

 veins on the leaves disposed fish-bone fashion. 



Mrs. Annie Bissett had a nice collection of some 

 hundred ferns in 3 or 4-inch pots, by which we 

 might see how many more kinds might be made 

 pets of by cultivators, besides the stock kinds 

 everybody is rushing to grow. Woodwardia 

 orientalis, Notholaena sinuata, and Adiantum his- 

 pidulum are evidently kinds worth looking after. 



Cut flowers in the shape of designs, and table, 

 wedding, and funeral ornaments were abundant, 

 though with little that we can note by way of 

 novelty. A church made of flowers by Graham 

 showed how useful the faded brown of the Hy- 

 drangea paniculata is in making stone walls. 

 H. D. Nesbit, and Sheafer's work told how useful 

 the leaves of European Ivy are still in making back- 

 ground in some styles of work; while for back- 

 ground work R. Scott & Sons use effectively the 

 Christmas ferns, Aspidium acrostichoides. Craig 

 Bros, are making good use of a small white 

 Dahlia named Guiding Star. It is not over two 

 inches across, and very double, and the same 

 firm use with admirable effect the darker China 

 asters, among maiden-hair fern. They had also 

 some good work made up of Geranium flowers, 

 and we should not be surprised to find some day 

 some one hitting on a combination that will make 

 Zonale Geraniums more popular than they are 

 now for cut flower work. 



Pennock Bros, showed how beautifully the 

 Bennett Rose matched Niphetos for drooping 

 " drapery " in cut flower work. In cut roses there 

 were many fine exhibits, but no particular novel- 

 ties. In Charles F. Evans' set there were flowers 

 of American Beauty that measured 5 inches 

 across, and were quite double when expanded. 

 The two names are superfluous, and probably the 

 " Beauty" is all it will get in the busy haunts of 

 trade. The Bennett in this collection was nearly 

 single when full blown, but this does not detract 

 from its great beauty in the bud, and " buds" are 

 all a rose lover wants. 



The collections of miscellaneous cut flowers ex- 



