October 16, 1878. ] 



JOUBNAIi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGK GARDENER. 



293 



south as Agadir. It is also found in the Island of Lanc&rotte, 

 one of the Canaries, acd that one considerably the nearest to 

 the Marocoan coast, but in no other island of that group, 

 which looks as if it were a comparatively recent importation 

 that had not as yet spread further to the westward. The 

 specimen here figured was raised from seeds brought by us 

 from Marocco in 1871, and which flowered in June of the 

 present year in Mr. Maw's garden, and in the Royal Gardens, 

 Kew."— (Bo«. Moft., t. 6060). 



Pelbctpiioiu ASELi.iFORiiis Car. CONOOLOR. Not. ord., Cao- 

 taopa>. Linn., Icosandria Monogynia. — Flowers purple, yellow, 

 and green. Native of Mexico. " This remarkable and stUl 

 yery rare plant has been long known amongst Cactus growers, 

 and has in fact been in the trade for many j'ears, having been 

 imported by the Brothers Tonel from Mexico, where it was said 

 to have been fonad with the equally anomalous Cactaceous 

 genus Anhalonium (lU. Hort., vol. xvi., t. G0.5 a). It was first 

 published ty Ehrenberg, from specimens grown in Berlin 

 in 1843, but nothing was known of its floral character till 

 Lemaire, in 18-58, published in the ' Illustration Horticole,' 

 quoted above, an excellent figure of it, with a very full and 

 interesting description." — {Bot. Mag., t. 6061.) 



RoBDS DKLicioscs. Nat. ord.. Rosacea?. Linn., Icosandria 

 Polygynia. — " A very interesting and little-known plant, de- 

 ijoribed by its discoverer, the late Dr. .Tames, as bearing a 

 fruit of dehcious sweetness and considerable size ; the latter 

 of which characters is not borne out by the specimens com- 

 munioated by Mr. Henry, and figured herewith. Whatever 

 may be the qualities of its frsit, there is no question about 

 the handsomeness of the flowering plant, whose flowers some- 

 what resemble those of a white liose in size and abundance. 

 It is a native of the Rocky Mountains, between the latitudes 

 311' and 45' N., on alpine ridges, where it was discovered by 

 Dr. James in 1822, and there are specimens in the Kew Her- 

 barium, collected by .James in the Colorado territory in 1861, 

 and by E. Hall and J. P. Harbour in 1862. Between the 

 dates of 1822 and 1861 it does not seem to have been seen by 

 any naturalist. Torrey and Gray (I.e.) and G. Don, in his 

 ' Gardeners' Dictionary,' describe the flowers as purple, which 

 is not the case. 



" Rubus deliciosng was introduced into cultivation in Eng- 

 land by my friend Isaac Anderson-Henry, F.L.S., of Hay 

 Lodge, Edinburgh, who received the seeds from N.W. America 

 in N. lat. 44", and flowered the plants he raised from them in 

 May, 1870. He describes it as 'a bush a yard high, covered 

 with large lovely blossoms, and quite an ornamental plant, 

 irrespective of the coming fruit.' The fruit, however, did not 

 came either in that or the following year, but in the end of last 

 .July Mr. Anderson-Henry sent a fruit, and which was of a ma- 

 roon brown colour and agreeable taste." — {Hot. Mag., I.. C,0C}2.) 



AmuccLA Clmrle.^ J. Perry. — " This splendid self Auricula 

 was raised by Mr. Turner, of Slough, and was very deservedly 

 awarded a first-class certificate by the Floral Committee of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society at its meeting on May 7th, 1873. 

 In the class of selfs it claims a very high position, possessing 

 as it does so many of the good properties essential to constitute 

 a first-class flower. It is a healthy free grower, has fine hand- 

 some white-dusted foliage, and produces stout large trusses of 

 its lovely flowers. The colour is a beautiful deep violet, the 

 pips being large and flat, remarkably smooth on the edge, and 

 yery circular, while the colours are well proportioned, with a 

 good white paste. It is a flower of firm substance, and is not 

 only very distinct, but particularly attractive, and in every 

 way well worthy a place in the most select collections of these 

 most interesting spring flowers."— (Florist and Pomologist.) 



THE REV. JOHN HUYSHE'S PEARS IN NEW 

 ZE.VLAND. 

 I HAVK fruited for the first time two of his admirable va- 

 rieties of Pears this season — the Victoria and Prince Consort — 

 and find that their texture, juice, and flavour are underrated 

 rather than overrated, in your description in The Journal 

 OF HoETicoLTDRE for 1867. The Victoria variety is now in 

 Reason here (July 30th) with me, and proves to have all the 

 merits the most fastidions lover of the Pear can desire. 

 My frait of them both are from double-grafted trees, which I 

 think causes them to be very fine. After your diagrams ap- 

 peared, not many months afterwards young trees of them were 

 in Melbourne, for private firms import largely and with great 

 spirit from Europe ; hcuce my fruiting them so soon by taking 



a few grafts oft the young trees on arriving here for mo from 

 Melbourne, ani inserting them on old trees. I think the in- 

 fluence of our climate has had a good deal to do with their 

 arriving at such perfection. I send you an outline section of 

 a Winter Nelis now in season, no turnipy flavour here, but 

 one that will gratify the palate. — W. Swale, Avanside Botanic 

 Garden, Canterbnrif, N.Z. 



[The drawing represents the Pear of the full size and the 

 usual form. — Eds.) 



LAMBTON CASTLE.— No. 1. 

 Tub Skat of the Karl of Dbbham. 



There are few rivers that present us with a greater diver- 

 sity of outline than the Wear, a stream which traverses the 

 county of Durham, and eventually enters the sea at Sunder- 

 land. True, it may not be so hard-worked as some of the Lan- 

 cashire rivers in the way of supplying water power, for the 

 reason that it runs through a district where the steam engine 

 may be said to perform not only the offices that water power 

 does elsewhere, but also many of those usually done by 

 manual labour; and even now, in spite of its pollution, it is a 

 fine river, and in its course past the city of Durham, its steep 

 and precipitous banks clothed with timber running up to the 

 walls of the venerable cathedral, add considerably to the 

 charm which that old city and its various associations present 

 to the traveller, for by a circuitous bend the river seems almost 

 to encircle the town. Proceeding further on it is occasionally 

 seen hemmed-in by high and precipitous banks, with naked 

 rock overhanging its channel, and its bed a floor of that ma- 

 terial ; while anon it has a serpentine course through flat 

 and extensive meadows, which at times of high floods have 

 evidently been overflowed. Then it enters some rugged glen, 

 as at the place now immediately under notice ; but before 

 doing so, its tortuous course through the meadows that bound 

 Chester-le-Street shows in some measure the character of the 

 stream and its adjuncts, for on its banks we noticed two of the 

 moat prominent plants were the common Tansy and Senecio 

 Jacobiea, both in flower, while we did not see the purple Loose- 

 strife, so common in many other places ; but our chances of ob- 

 servation were few, for in fact we approached Lambton Castle 

 from another direction. 



Fence Houses, a village of no great dimensions, is some two 

 miles or more to the south, but there an important railway offers 

 the nearest station to alight, and proceeding some distance 

 along country lanes we reach one of the entrances to the park, or 

 rather domain, for at this particular place it is a wood of con- 

 siderable dimensions. An excellent carriage road carries us 

 on underneath some well-grown Oaks, beneath whose wide- 

 spread branches Rhododendrons of all ages and sizes are 

 luxuriating alternately with Hollies, Yews, and other ever- 

 greens, with all the intervening spaces not occupied by them 

 either dotted over with noble examples of the male Fern, or 

 entirely covered with the common Brake, leaving but few 

 places for other herbage to show itself ; nevertheless, we 

 noticed a fine group of that ornamental British plant which 

 has never had its merits fairly acknowledged, the Equisetum, 

 and its appearance in a mass was certainly good. But we must 

 not linger, and our roail continuing to descend we at length 

 come to a position where some additional planting would seem 

 to have been recently done, and some of the fashionable 

 Pinuse.i appear to have been employed; still not having time 

 to examine them closely wo proceed, and descending further, 

 a turn of the road brings us in sight of the gardens lying im- 

 mediately before us, but on the opposite side of the Weir, 

 which it should be stated is here a wide navigable river. 

 Pausing to look at the garden from this point the traveller is 

 impressed with the magnitude of the glass structures, of which, 

 I believe, there are twenty-seven in all, and most of them 

 large. The first impulse also would bo that it is exceedingly 

 snug and well sheltered, for the woods that screen it at the 

 back rise considerably above the structures and dressed grounds. 

 On the other hand, the ugly idea starts up that a situation 

 which appears to be so carefully carved out of a forest, is not un- 

 likely to be visited by late spring frostn, lying as it does below 

 everything around it. With tlii..i, however, we have nothing to 

 do, but proceeding a little further on we see an ornamental 

 bridge that leads direct to the gardeu, while the carriage road 

 skirts the banks of the river for some distance farther, the 

 steep banks to the left being timbered to the top, and there is 

 the sama admixture of Rhododendrons, Feru.= , Ac, as previ- 



