November 11, 1905 



HORTICULTURE 



495 



A New Winter Cherry 



I'lIYSALlS BUNYARDI 



That splendid winter-cherry (Physalis Franchetti) 

 with its large, rich, orange-red calyces ('lanterns") is 

 most valuable for winter decoration. In the market and 

 in the florists' shops in this country (England) bunches 

 of the cut stems of this plant are quite a feature and 

 large numbers of them are sold. They make a most 

 handsome display in large vases, if arranged with 

 grasses, etc., and will last for many weeks in beauty. 

 Physalis Franchetti is a great improvement upon the 

 older Physalis Alkekengi : its calyces are much finer, 

 altogether more richly colored. 



On October 24 Mr. George Bunyard, Maidstone, ex- 

 hibited a new winter-cherry before the Eoyal Horticul- 

 tural Society, called Physalis Bunyardi, the result of a 

 cross between P. Franchetti and P. Alkekengi. It is 

 early to form an opinion as to the merits of this new 

 plant, but it seems to possess at least one advantage over 

 P. Franchetti in having longer stems, which are slightly 

 arching and so lend themselves better to decoration 

 than the stiffer and shorter stems of the latter. The in- 

 flated calyces are on the whole not so large as those of 

 Physalis Franchetti. although some of them are : they 

 are the same color as those of the older sort. The accom- 

 panying illustration shows well the habit of growth of 

 this new hybrid winter-cherry, although the "fruits" are 

 shown considerably reduced. 



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London, England. 



Rose Hybridization 



In my researclies in plant physiology I find the 

 credit of discovering the sexes of flowers belongs to a 

 Frenchman. The botanist who wrote after the Renais- 

 sance hazarded some vague conjectures on this subject, 

 and it was only towards the end of the 17th century that 

 the true functions were assigned with precision, to the 

 pistil and the stamen. Tournefort rejected the fact of 

 fertilization, and persisted in considering the stamens 

 as organs of excretion. After his death, the most 

 devoted of his disciples, Sebastian Vaillant, in a dis- 

 course, delivered in 1716 at the King's garden, ex- 

 plained the functions of the stamen, and demonstrated, 

 incontrovertibly, the phenomena of fertilization of 

 plants. Eight years later Linnseus (Linne) popular- 

 ized the doctrine of fertilization by his writings, which 

 were no less remarkable for their logical accuracy and 

 poetic charm. 



As to the rose, I will only write about the visible 

 organs, namely: the stamen and the pistil. What we, 

 as florists, consider a perfect rose, is in a botanical 

 sense an imperfect one, as the stamens have mostly 

 grown out into petals. The pistils which arise from 

 the center are the organs through which the pollen is 

 carried to the ovule; the stamens surround the pistils, 

 and produce the pollen in little sacks at the extreme end. 



Having selected the flower you wish to work upon 

 remove all the stamens before they show any pollen. 

 Then select the flower you wish to be the pollen bearer; 

 if the pollen has not already appeared on it, cut the 

 flower, remove the petals and put the stem in a cup 

 of water until the pollen appears. When the nectar or 

 watery substance appears on top of the pistil is the 

 time to shake the pollen on a white saucer, pick the 

 same up with a camel-hair brush, and carry it to the 

 top of the pistil. As the pollen sometimes is very scarce, 

 it is better to put it only on two, or three pistils, re- 

 peating the operation the following day. 



It takes a great deal of pollen to make one seed. The 

 pollen grains are living cells, and with these cells, life 

 begins. Wliy does the seed fail to come up sometimes? 

 Because the flower has been insufficiently pollenized or 

 the pistils were imperfect. A great many of them I 

 have found twisted and crooked, which prevents the 

 pollen from being carried down through the pistil. 

 This I've found the case in the most of our florist roses, 

 such as the Bride, Bridesmaid,' and American Beauty. 

 The shell, or the covering of the seed which adheres to 

 the side of the hilum, is fed from the stem below, and 

 is not dependent on the pollen. We find plenty of 

 what the florists call blind seed, namely, the covering 

 without a germ, which proves that no pollen has ever 

 entered it. It takes from four to six months to ripen 

 the seed. When the stem of the hip begins to get yel- 

 low then the seed is ripe, take it off, wash the bulb and 

 put it in a pot in sand, which is to be kept wet, and in 

 a short time it will be rotten, when the seed can be 

 washed out, and sown at once, before it gets dry. If the 



