1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



229 



ing we should regard as due to local or temporary j 

 causes. The writer has an atro-purpureum before 

 him as he writes, which is approaching six feet 

 high ; and while some things supposed generally 

 hardy have been kUled, some in one winter, some 

 in others, this plant has never shown any injury. 

 It 'S on its own roots— not grafted— though we do 

 no-; know this should make any difterence. The 

 purple English oak, growing twenty feet from it, 

 has been killed, when the maple was uninjured. 



Improved Hepaticas.— X^'e have occasionally 

 referred to these as among the most desirable of 

 our spring flowers, and they bear cultivation very 

 well. There are several shades of color, and some 

 with double flowers, mostly from plants that have 

 been found wild. From the following from a cor- 

 respondent of the Garden, it would seem as if 

 there were to be some earnest attempts by florists 

 at their improvement. Perhaps our (iwn gardeners 

 will like to share in this interesting effort : 



"These are plants that will repay the trouble of 

 raising them from seed, as thereby a great variety 

 of color is gained, and we shall soon find multi- 

 plied the terrific names given in catalogues to 

 these first glances of the spring. The seed does 

 not germinate till the following spring, but it should 

 be sown when ripe. 1 have now several pans full 

 of seedlings, which will not bloom till next year, 

 though they w^ere sown in April, 1875 ; for all that 

 I shall be well repaid, as the flowers were care- 

 fully hybridized, and the pans have required little 

 attention after sowing the seed. Turfy loam mixed j 

 about half-and-half with cocoanut fibre is the best 

 compost for sowing all such seed as will have to 

 remain a long time in the pans ; this compost does 

 not become sour or consolidated." 



Pansies for Beddi.ng. — My neighbor, Mr. 

 Beard, an enthusiastic horticulturist, grows the 

 finest pansies that I have ever seen. A few months 

 ago the Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 awarded him a silver medal for his pansies. He 

 sows his seed in August, and grows his young 

 plants in cold frames, which are well wrapped up 

 in winter by a bank of litter with a board over it 

 around the frames, and straw mats with light 

 wooden shutters over them, over the sashes. His 

 pansies keep growing all vvinter long, begin to 

 bloom in January or February, are at their best in 

 March and April, and by a little shading from strong 

 sunshine, and lots of water should they need it, 

 they bear their blossoms copiously till June arrives, 

 by which time their blossoms, on account of the 

 excessive heat, become too small to satisfy his 

 taste, then every plant is rooted out and thrown 

 away. The soil he uses is fresh loam, with a 

 heavv addition of old rotted manure and leaf 



mould. Last spring, in front of his house, in ad- 

 dition to his beds of spring flowers, were vases 

 filled with pansies of a size and richness so un- 

 common as to elicit the admiration of the whole 

 neighborhood, and sow the healthy seeds of emu- 

 lation. Yox two months before the advent of 

 geraniums and petunias we can thus enjoy our 

 pansies. Connoisseurs sometimes perpetuate the 

 finer pansies by renewing them from cuttings 

 every year, but so very fine is the Lemoine strain, 

 that pansies from cuttings seem a waste of time. — 

 W. Falconer in Counf/y Gentleman. 



Zebra Grass. — Eulalia Japonica is not far in- 

 ferior in beauty to the famed Pampas grass, and 

 especially when growing in good strong bunches. 

 .A.S an ornamental parlor grass it is particularly de- 

 sirable. Besides it has the advantage of being 

 entirely hardy. 



A White D.\phne Gwenka. — In regard to the 

 discovery of the white variety of this in China, 

 Mr. Maries tells the Gardcti: 



"As I left Kuikiang and rambled along amongst 

 the old graves and bushes on the roadside 1 no- 

 ticed several light-colored varieties of the Daphne 

 Gwenka. It struck me there might be a white 

 one, and I was somehow always looking for a 

 white variety. When near the hills I saw in the 

 distance, across the paddy fields, a white patch of 

 flowers. I went, and found to my inexpressible 

 delight a pure white variety of the Daphne, with 

 much larger flowers than the lilac one, and slightly 

 scented. 1 took up the plant carefully, and sent 

 to Kuikiang for pots and potted it. It grew, and 

 was eventually safely landed at Coombe Wood 

 Nursery, where it thrives well. It was growing in 

 stiff yellow loam ; in fact, I never found Daphne 

 Gwenka in anything else except loass and stiff 

 yellow loam. It thrives admirably in gravel at 

 Coombe Wood. The best way to grow it is to 

 prune it down after flowering, so as to get long 

 young growths, on which the flowers are produced 

 the following spring from the ground to the top of 

 the branches. I have seen it four feet long in 

 China, just as Mr. Van Volxem described it to me 

 a 'grappe des fleurs.' The white variety is evi- 

 dently a rarity, as the Chinese said they never saw 

 a white one before." 



Ros.\ RUGos.'V. — For many years Rosa Kamt- 

 chatica has been growing in old Germantown 

 gardens. The newly introduced Rosa rugosa 

 seems to be the same thing, and as far as we can 

 judge from Lindley's monograph of roses, the de- 

 scribed differences have little specific value. 



Cultivating the J.a.pan Lily. — It is well 

 known that of thousands of Japan lilies planted in 

 this country annually few survive. The true reason 

 has not been discovered. It has been thought that 



