270 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 8, 1865. 



Black HamburRh and most others become very inferior, and 

 will not rijieu kindlv. It is just probable that we may origi- 

 nate sorts from seed that will not require this thinning. I 

 only know of one v.irietj' at present likely to allow of it — viz., 

 the Fiutindo, a round-berried, deep purple Grape of excellent 

 flavour. I have reason also to think that the SiJtana, a white 

 Grape from Smyrna, may be placed in the same category, as 

 my Smyrna friends tell me it is highly esteemed there, owing 

 to its benies never being crowded, but hanging loosely and 

 detached ou tlie bimches. 



It is some years since I prognosticated that Grapes would be 

 grown by the acre : the time is coming. 1 lb. per square foot 

 could be grown in ground vineries properly cultivated, on a 

 light good soil — -13, .500 lbs. Take off half for spaces between 

 vineries = 21,7oUlbs. Deduct one-third for more space between 

 and casualties : say 14,000 lbs. per acre — a low calculation. — 

 Thomas Rivers. 



THE DUBLIN BOTANIC GARDENS.— No. 1. 



Gl.vsnevix has been so often described, and is so well known 

 to botanists who have visited Dublin, that a new notice of it 

 may seem superfluous ; but every one who inspects these cele- 

 brated gardens must look at them with different eyes. Ex- 

 perience and taste differ so widely, and ths season of the year 

 when they are visited is so likely to vary, every week making a 

 change in the aspect of the place, that the impressions pro- 

 duced a fortnight since on one who had never before crossed 

 the Irish Sea. may possibly possess a little novelty. 



From the useful little handbook prepared by Dr. Moore, it 

 appears that tlie gardens were founded about seventy years ago, 

 when the Royal Dublin Society possessed themselves for this 

 purpose of the pretty and very suitable grounds, rendered 

 classic by the former residence in the midst of them of the 

 poet Tickell. The house which he inhabited still exists, and 

 many of the fine trees that cast their shadows upon the sward 

 were, no doubt, of his planting. The names of other literary 

 celebrities are associated almost as intimately with Glasnevin, 

 as those of Steele and Parnell, and, pre-eminently, that of 

 Addison. An undulating walk between two rows of tall Yews, 

 which at the time of my visit were strewing the ground with 

 their scarlet berries, is said to have been a favourite resort of 

 the famous essayist, and is known to this day as " Addison's." 

 The general surface of the ground is very agi-eeably diversi- 

 fied. There is sufficient of slope to produce picturesque effects ; 

 the rise and fall are renewed in every part, and the side 

 furthest from the entrance is bordered by the little river Tolka, 

 advantage of which has been taken to secure a capital Salice- 

 tum, and also to introduce many moisture-loving herbaceous 

 plants. These flourish charmingly on the reedy margins, and 

 "ive a completeness to the collection far more natui'al than is 

 possible where the preparation for such plants has to be wholly 

 made by hand. 



The hothouses and greenhouses are capacious and well- 

 placed. Objection may be taken to the external lines of the 

 Palm-house, but it is not fail- to talk of the ill-binding of a 

 book when the contents are as rich as the heart can wish. A 

 marvellous place is this Palm-house. Perhaps the gi-andest 

 thing it contains is a plant of that most exquisite of tree Ferns, 

 the Cyathiva serra, a vast vegetable parasol, the stem grace- 

 fully bending, fawn-coloured, and glossy at the upper part, 

 with silvery-gre,y scales, while the great green pellucid fronds, 

 silvei-y upon the under surface, form arches upon every side. 

 Another veiy striking plant in this house is a great Urania 

 speciosa, the vast leaves so intensely equitant at the base as to 

 form a solid flat mass, and the general aspect reminding one of 

 the vegetation in a pantomine scene. The crowd of rare and 

 noble plants that share in the shelter of this grand department 

 is beyond description. The simple list of species, with de- 

 served commendations of their healthy and hearty condition, 

 would make an article. 



The adjacent houses are equally rich, especially in jjlants 

 noted for their economic value, and many of great rarity ; yet, 

 pleasant as it is to take in almost at a glance the Clove and 

 the Camphor tree, the Sugar-cane and Guava, it is even more 

 delightful to be harpooned at evei-y turn by such things as 

 Cockscombs -mth pink flowers ; the pyramidal variety of the 

 same plant with queer little wattles on the very summits of 

 the tall spikes ; Martynia proboscidea, with large and hand- 

 some lUao corollas, internally speckled, and with a yellow stripe 

 down the centre; Drosera dichotoma, with clusters of white 



flowers, each l.J inch across, and on a scape 2 feet high, and so 

 on till we cry out El Dorado ! Such strange Begonias too. How 

 slight an idea is given of this singular genus by the common 

 " elephants' ears " of our consen-atories ! Instead of the large 

 grey leaf spanned by a silvery arch, or dotted with white, here 

 we have the most elaborately ihgitate, and in the tomentosa a 

 leaf as fleshy as that of a Sedum, and completely covered vdth 

 pale pubescence. Not far from it was an odd Convolvulus, raised 

 from seeds lately received from India, and flowering for the 

 first time. The corolla, instead of being campanulate with an 

 even rim, has the five petals united for so short a distance 

 upwards that they hang together Hke those of the Azalea when 

 half withered. In other respects it resembles the common 

 Convolvulus major of every garden. It is the sight of such 

 plants as these that renders a visit to Glasnevin so valuable. 

 The notions we pick up in ordinary gardens must necessarily 

 be imperfect, because derived from a single expression of what 

 is often a multiform type or idea, and we discover at the same 

 time how false are all definitions ; for directly we have laid 

 down what seems to be the rule, something comes in to upset 

 it. No fence is so ingeniously constructed, but some queer 

 exceptional thing is found walking through it. 



In the Victoria regia-house. Rice is freely grown in several 

 distinct varieties. There, also, is the pretty Pontedera cordata, 

 abounding in spikes of gay blue flowers. This plant does well 

 during summer in a tank out of doors, where the water is 

 sUghtly warmed from mthin. It is also being tried, and ap- 

 parently with success, in the swampy ground where earlier in 

 the summer we may see the lovely bloom of the Jleuyanthes. 

 Among the very special oddities was shown a Marcgravia, 

 clinging like Ivj- to the wall, only that the leaves instead of 

 being Ivy-like, are oblong, an inch or two in length, and light 

 green. In Brazil this plant is seen clinging to every old tree- 

 stump, both in the forests and when washed-up ou the river- 

 banks — a sort of vegetable barnacle. It would have been missed 

 but for the kindness of Mr. Orr, the Superintendent of the 

 plant-houses, whose courtesy and attention to visitors are on a 

 par with his extensive and most accurate knowledge of plants. 

 It would be invidious to mention his name without saying at 

 the same time, that everything a botanical visitor to- these 

 famous gardens can desire in connection with the hardy and 

 out-door plants, whether names or location, is afforded by Mr. 

 Macardle, who positively seems a piece of the garden, so bound 

 up is he, heart and soul, with its life and contents. The 

 ancients had a pretty fable in their mythologj- about hama- 

 dryads — nymphs who lived and died with the trees they 

 belonged to. The hving for thirty years in a garden like this 

 seems to show that poesy may have more truth in it than we 

 are sometimes disposed to admit, though put in a fanciful way. 

 Innumerable are the small evergreen shrubs and sufiruticose 

 plants found in the greenhouses and the httle receptacles sup- 

 plementary to them. Every type of Cape and Australian 

 botany is represented ; and not inferior to this class of plants 

 is the collection of succulents. I was much struck while 

 reveUiug in this opulent in-door garden with the number of 

 butterflies that were at play among the plants. Probably there 

 may be as many in other places, but it has not been my good 

 fortune to obseiwe them — good, since their painted wings and 

 delicate movements seem to harmonise best of all with these 

 rich and rare plants of foreign climes. Minutely examining 

 the Uttle flowers of Hypericum ajgjqjtiacum, the stamens were 

 foimd to be united, not simply at the base, as in all the British 

 species of this genus, but into three little arborescent bunches, 

 after the manner of those of certain Myrtaceous plants — Beau- 

 fortias to wit. Disandra prostrata was trailing from the tub of 

 a tree Fern, and had leaves 2 J inches across ; and Oxahs sensi- 

 tiva was almost a weed, producing its yellow flowers in plenty, 

 and shrinking when touched. 



The gardens, strictly so-called — such portion of the ground, 

 that is to say, as is not conserv.itory, present features if 

 possible more surprising. The first plant noticed was Reau- 

 muria hyperieoides, a neat little grey-green undershrub in the 

 gi-eenhouse border, with axillary pink flowers the size of a 

 sixpence. The student of vegetable anatomy should not fail 

 to examine the ovary and ovules of this plant whenever the 

 opportunity may oft'er. Alongside was the singular and showy 

 Amicia zygome'ris, a purplish-green leguminous undershrub, 

 with hollow and pubescent stems, and leaves formed of four 

 large, curiously truncated leaves, that differ from those of most 

 other Legiuniuosaj in possessing abundance of transparent dots. 

 The stipules are conspicuous and remarkable ; the flowers (not 

 seen at Glasnevin), are yellow. Phygelius capensis makes a very 



