Jane 26, 1866. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



469 



fronds of less size, and not so powdery. The most singular 

 part of the affair was, that all the plants of each character 

 after less than a year's cultivation yielded perfect spores, which 

 on being sown reproduced the varieties, and their fronds are 

 three times the size of those of their parents. I also made 

 experiments with Gymnogramma gracilis, pulverulenta, argy- 

 rophylla, L'Herminieri, and Laucheana sown indiscriminately 

 together. 



The spores of Gymnogramma gracilis were those of a plant 

 which I had grown some ten years, when that Fern was quite 

 new, and it was isolated not merely from every other Gymno- 

 gramma, but also from every other Fern, for it was the only 

 one in the house ; the spores of the other species came from 

 plants which had never been in any way in contact either with 

 Gymnogramma gracilis or G. tartarea. The results were as 

 follow : — 



Gymmgramma pulvcntl'iita sulpJmrea. — Both sides of the 

 fronds were covered with pale yellow dust. I only obtained 

 three plants, which I unfortunately lost in winter. 



G. gracilis liybrida, intermediate between G. gracilis and 

 G. lanata, and resembling G. tartarea. Some of the plants 

 are densely covered with a bright silvery dust, others with a 

 yellowish white dust, and in others again it is altogether want- 

 ing. All are covered at the base of the fronds with a dense 

 brown down more or less deep in colour. 



G. gracilis chgantissirrm, with very finely-cut fronds densely 

 covered on both sides with a yellowish white powder. 



(r. gracilis supcrba, the most ornamental and valuable of all. 

 The fronds, which curve very gracefully, are not nearly so finely 

 cut as in the preceding, but are broad, of a bright glossy gi-een, 

 with a metaUic lustre on the upper surface, and covered beneath 

 with a very thick coating of yellowish white powder. This is 

 one of the hardiest of all Gymnogrammas. 



G. liyhrida (lavallitcfolia, the result of a fertilisation of 

 G. L'Herminieri. Its merits consist in the number and fine- 

 ness of its pinnules, forcibly reminding one of some graceful 

 DavaUia ; its fructification is also very ornamental. 



Gymnogrammas are readily crossed, but up to the present 

 time other genera have not produced hybrids. I have, it is 

 true, obtained some variations of form, such as DavaUia tenui- 

 loUa stricta, a tufty variety of D. tenuifoUa, and Pteris asperi- 

 caulis from the seeds of Pteris tricolor, which may, perhaps, 

 tend to prove that the latter is only a hybrid or variety of 

 Pteris aspericaulis, and all the more because it is absolutely 

 the same as the latter in its mode of growth. These forms 

 remind one of the hardy Ferns, most of which are so interest- 

 ing and ornamental, and of which the spores always reproduce 

 the same forms, as I found some years ago by experiment on 

 Athyrium FOix-fct-mina FrizeUiffi, and again more recently in 

 the ease of Osmunda regalis cristata. 



Did the last-mentioned forms also result fi-om fecundation ? 

 I do not think so, because there are plants, though compara- 

 tively few in number, which return to the type after having 

 preserved for a whole year the character of a particular form of 

 that type. 



Experience has taught me, as it has many others, that the 

 pro-embryos can be preserved as long as the plants themselves. 

 and that they can be divided and thus serve for propagation 

 where the number of plants obtained is smaU. All that is 

 necessary to be done is to cut off the young plants with a very 

 Bharp knife, always taking care to preserve the pro-embryos. 

 It is more particularly to those of tree and other very large 

 Ferns that this mode of proceeding applies. 



My experiments have likewise taught me that a high tempe- 

 rature hastens and is favourable to the germination of the 

 spores, and their hybridisation. I always give a sufficient 

 degree of heat to kill every Phienogamous plant. 



As a nurseryman my experiments have naturally been limited, 

 only extending to the most ornamental species sought after in 

 commerce ; and for the same reason I could not afford the 

 time and the appliances necessary to attain a definite result 

 if such were possible. It is the part of practical gardeners 

 to perform horticultural labours with intelligence, and to ob- 

 serve the facts and appearances which serve to guide men of 

 science in profound and intricate investigations. — A. Stelzner 

 {Bulletin dii foiigri's Internatiotuil dc Botanique et d'Horticul- 

 ture a Amsterdam.) 



Peab Bloom on the Young Wood. — A Pear tree, which I 

 believe to be the Easter Beurr6, growing on a wall at Fordham 

 Abbey, is well covered with fruit as large as Walnuts. At the 



same time a shoot of the present year, has a bunch of blossoms 

 (unfertile) fully expanded. — W. C. 



NEW SEEDLING ROSE— MRS. WARD. 

 I HAVE received from Mr. Ward, the raiser of one of our 

 most renowned English Roses — John Hopper, some blooms of 

 another seedling of his own raising, which, I do not hesitate to 

 say, will in my opinion prove a worthy compeer to that cele- 

 brated flower. Not content to run into the common track, and 

 to add another to the many childi'en of Genural Jacqueminot 

 with which we are already inundated, he has taken as the 

 parents of his seedUngs Jules Margottin and Oomtesse COcile 

 de Chabrillant, two of the very best Roses we have ; and in the 

 case of Mrs. Ward he has obtained a Rose which partakes most 

 clearly of the quaUties of both parents. In shape it is like the 

 Comtesse, beautifully shell-like, with very thick petals. As to 

 colour, it has the colour of Jules Margottin in the centre of 

 the flower, and that of the Comtesse in the outer petals. In 

 habit it partakes of the character of the Comtesse (which, 

 strange as it may sound, is the male pareutj, the wood being 

 very stout and spiny. I know Mr. Ward's ground well — worse 

 Rose gi'ound I do not know ; and I am quite confident that 

 when this Rose is grown in good strong soil it will prove to be 

 one of the very finest exhibition Roses we have. I have been 

 lately through the Rose gardens of Lyons and Paris, and I have 

 seen no new Rose equal to this, and I consider Mr. Ward to 

 have been most fortunate in raising it. I was not wrong about 

 John Hopper, and I am tolerably certain I am correct in my 

 estimate of Mrs. Ward also. — D., Deal. 



WEATHER "\\T:SD0M. 



(Continued from page 348.) 



The report of a Committee appointed to consider " certain 

 questions relating to the meteorological department of the 

 Board of Trade " has recently been issued,* and I think that a 

 few extracts therefrom will not prove uninteresting to those of 

 your readers who have neither the time, wiU, nor the oppor- 

 tunity to wade through the pages of a parliamentary blue 

 book. The subject of the report is intimately connected with 

 "weather," and the book is well worthy of the study of those 

 who try to attain to " weather wisdom." 



The first part of the Report treats of the meteorology of the 

 ocean ; the second, of " The prognostication of weather in the 

 British isles, together with observations of the changes of 

 weather within or near these limits, for the purpose of ascer- 

 taining the laws upon which such prognostications are or 

 ought to be founded." It is to this section of the report that I 

 now purpose caUing the attention of your readers. 



The practice of telegraphing and foretelling weather began 

 with the late Admiral Fitzroy (see Report, page 17). Storm- 

 signals were hoisted for the first time in February, 18G1, and 

 in August of the same year daily forecasts of the weather, of 

 which a specimen is given in the Appendix, page xxix., appeared 

 in the newspapers (Report, page 19). This system it seems was 

 not confined to the British isles alone. The Report says, 

 " M. Le Verrier has organised a system of storm-warnings 

 similar to our own. For some time his bulletin contained pre- 

 dictions of the probable weather for different parts of France, 

 but we observe that these daily predictions have been recently 

 discontinued." At page 19 of the Report, the pubUc are ini- 

 tiated into the mysteries of English weather-forecasting. 



" In making daily forecasts, the area of the British isles is 

 divided into districts, and the average state of the weather in 

 each district is deduced from the weather reports received from 

 the stations contained within it. 



" A daily forecast for each district is then made provisionally. 



" The separate forecasts are next collated and revised, regai-d 

 being paid to the foUoTving particulars : — 



" (a) The mutual actions of the estimated weather in each of 

 the districts of the British isles. 



" b) Scattered information in respect to such distant areas of 

 high and low barometer as the continental stations can afford. 



" (c) Geographical conditions of mountain, plain, or sea, by 

 which the free movements of the air may be affected. 



" It is the custom of the department to perform the whole of 



• " Report of a Committee nppointed to consider certain questions re- 

 lating to the MeteoroloRical Department or the Board of Trade." Lon- 

 don : George Edward Eyre, and William Spottiawoode. 1866. 



