Angnst 26, 1875. 1 



JOURNAL OF HOBTIOUIiTUBB AND OOTTAGB GARDENER, 



181 



flowers, or pota of flowers, or packets of flowering bulbs ; also 

 for Lavender and fresh fruit. I am sure our need bas only to 

 be mentioned to secure the kind help of voir readers — the 

 possessors of gardens and orchards. — E. A. H., Sec. Flower 

 Mission. 



KNIGHT'S NUESERY, HAILSHAM. 



Having accomplished a peep at Piltdown, a rosarian's next 

 desire during his stay at EaBtbourne will be to visit the birth- 

 place of that very charming Kose Princess Louise Victoria. 

 This Rose is of a colour quite new among English seedlings. 

 It is of very vigorous growth, and certainly almost an ex- 

 hibition Rose. I was very sorry to hear that there were no 

 sisters likely to follow. Mr. Knight has not since then been 

 doing much in the way of English seedlings. 



He took me over his gardens in a very obliging way, and we 

 had an agreeable chat as to the coming Roses of the period. 

 I saw some very fine blooms, considering the season and the 

 want of rain at Hailsham, and shall venture to transcribe my 

 notes, as, judging by myself. Rose gossip in your columns can 

 generally meet with a reader. 



The soil of the Hailsham nurseries is a good loam with clay 

 underneath, and the Roses flourish accordingly. Capitaine 

 Christy was only good on the Briar, the Manetti he had 

 taken to very unkindly ; Niphetos was magnificent. Marguerite 

 de St. Amand good. This was also particularly fine at Pilt- 

 down. To the Duchess of Edinburgh I desire to make my 

 apologies for what I lately said of her. As bloomed at Hail- 

 sham she is almost as good as Marguerite de St. Amand, and 

 very fragrant indeed into the bargain. As Miss Ingelow says 

 in one of her charming Lincolnshire poems — 



" A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath 

 Than my son's wife EHzabeth," 



I never held a sweeter Rose in my hand than the Duchess of 

 Edinburgh with which Mr. Knight presented us. 



Among other new Roses Albert Payf. appeared a lighter kind 

 of Mdlle. Marie Finger, and decidedly good ; Maxime de la 

 Bocheterie was new to me, it is of enormous size and very 

 dark ; Princess Beatrice is here also very taking. There was 

 a most charming box of this last June at the Alexandra 

 Palace. Susannah Wood was one of the most striking Roses. 

 It is as large as Paul N6ron, and very like him, but has the 

 petals beautifully imbricated, almost after the fashion of the 

 Tea Rose HomOre. I am inclined to think it will come to the 

 front. Mr. Knight pointed out to me another new Rose with 

 which he is much pleased, and which can hardly fail to be ap- 

 preciated in " the box." It is called Souvenir de Spa, and is 

 of vigorous growth. It has all the compactness of Senateur 

 Vaisse, with a depth of colour that is worthy of Reynolds Hole ; 

 it is a Rose that I have not as yet seen anywhere mentioned. 



The Roses I understood received comparatively little dressing, 

 except one of burnt earth mixed with weeds and other refuse. 

 They certainly do credit to their place and culture. — A. C. 



POROUS GARDEN POTS. 



Mr. Simpson and myself judge from different standpoints, 

 therefore it is not likely that we shall agree except to diiifer. 

 It is for others to determine for themselves the advantages of 

 a dirty over a clean pot, and a glazed over a moderately porous 

 pot. I advocate cleanliness and moderation ; my friendly 

 opponent dirt and dogmatism. I discriminate between the 

 nature of plants and their adaptability to a given character 

 of pot, admitting that some flourish in glazed pots ; he admits 

 no such distinction, but believes that epiphytal plants may be 

 well grown in poreless pots, and clinches his argument by 

 stating that Mr. Thomson is transferring even his Orchids to 

 glazed pots. Well, someone must be the horticultural Colum- 

 bus to teach us the process of making an egg stand on its end. 

 I confess that I have failed, and have had to remove Orchids 

 out of porous pots and material into others more porous still, 

 and I have seen the advantage of doing so. 



But Mr. Simpson requires " reasonable evidence." I can 

 give no better than that the Messrs. Veiteh of Chelsea, instead 

 of using pots with perforated sides (porous enough, one would 

 think), are finding the advantage of growing many specimens 

 in open latticework cradles. This practice has not, that I am 

 aware of, been hitherto alluded to in the horticultural press, 

 but the " utility " of it is proved to demonstration. The fact 

 is that many plants which flourish in close airproof pots and 

 material do so mainly by the roots that are outside .the pots 



feeding on the air, and not by the roots inside the pots, which 

 often convey but little nutriment to the plants which they are 

 fondly supposed to support. 



I have readily admitted that very soft and coarse clay pots 

 are not the best for the general use of general growers of 

 plants, and the same experience compels me to say that clean, 

 well-burnt, earthenware pots are the most safely recommend- 

 able of all the sorts that I have used. I have been potting 

 plants for twenty-five years, and have Mr. D. Thomson's testi- 

 mony as to being " practical," and other proofs which I value, 

 if possible, even more than that. That is my excuse for 

 writing. I do not complain of anything that Mr. Simpson 

 has said, but, on the contrary, welcome his experience, which 

 will set others a-thinking and lead to further experiments 

 on this important matter. I have nothing more to say. — 



Ex-EXHIBITOK. 



PORTRAITS OF PLANTS, FLOWERS, and FRUITS. 



Mertensia alpina. Nat. ord., Boraginacea:. Linn., Pent- 

 andria Monogynia. — Flowers blue. " A lovely little rock plant, 

 a native of the higher parts of the Rocky Mountains, and, like 

 many such, inhabiting an immense stretch of latitude — namely, 

 from 3',» N. to the Arctic seacoast. It is an extremely variable 

 plant. M. alpina was imported by Messrs. Backhouse of York, 

 who flowered it in May last." — {hot. Mag., t. 6178 ) 



Michelia lanoginosa. Nat. ord., Magnoliacete. Linn., 

 Polyandria Polygynia. — Dr. Hooker says, "Described as a 

 lofty tree in Nipal, according to Wallich, by whom it was dis- 

 covered in 1821 ; though I never saw it forming anything but 

 a small tree in Sikkim, where I found it at an elevation ot 

 6-7000 feet in 1848. It has also been collected in Bhotan by 

 Griflith, and in the Khasia Mountains by Lobb. The flowers, 

 which are very sweet-scented, vary much in size, from 3 to 

 4| inches in diameter, in the number of sepals and petals, and 

 in the depth of their straw colour. 



" Michelia lanuginosa was sent to Kew from Sikkim by Dr. 

 Thomson, when superintendent of the Botanic Gardens of 

 Calcutta, about twenty years ago, and was planted out in the 

 Temperate House about ten years ago. It now forms a small 

 sparingly-branched tree, 1'2 feet high. It never flowered till 

 the present year, when many buds formed in March, and 

 which, owing to the cold and cloudy spring, never opened till 

 May, by which time most had fallen off unopened. Wallich 

 observes that the scent of the flowers is less powerful, and 

 therefore more agreeable, than in the other common Indian 

 species of the genus, of which the Champaca is the best known." 

 —{Ibid., t. 6179). 



Ttphonium Brownii. Nat. ord., Aracete. Linn., Mono'oia 

 Polyandria. — Spathe purple. " A very curious Aroid, belong- 

 ing to a genus that extends from Western India to Australia 

 and the Malayan Islands, and of which probably many species 

 are still to be discovered in New Guinea and the eastern 

 islands of the China sea. It is a native of Eastern Australia, 

 extending from Port Jackson northward to Rockingham Bay 

 in latitude 19° S., and, according to Mueller, varying in the 

 length of the club-shaped apex of the spadix from 1 to 5 inches, 

 as also in the breadth of the spathe. Under these circum- 

 stances it is not surprising that Robert Brown referred this to 

 the T. orixense (Arum orixense of Roxburgh), a plant very 

 widely spread in tropical and subtropical India, and which 

 yet may prove to be a geographically-separated variety of this. 

 Typhonium Brownii was flowered by Mr. Bull in April last 

 from bulbs imported by him from Rockhampton in Queens- 

 land."— (/(xU, t. 6180.) 



Eranthemdm hypockateriforme. Nat. ord., Acanthaoeaj. 

 Linn., Diandria Monogynia. — Corollas scarlet above and yellow 

 beneath. " The genus Eranthemum, of which there are so 

 many Indian, Pacific Islands, and Brazilian species, is com- 

 paratively scarce in Africa, where only six species have been 

 hitherto detected, though no doubt many more await diecovery. 

 Of these the present is much the handsomest, and is indeed 

 one of the most attractive of the genus. It is apparently con- 

 fined to the west coast, extending from Accra to Sierra Leone, 

 from which latter place seeds were received in 1870 from the 

 Rev. Mr. Bockstadt, a very intelligent gentleman attached to 

 the mission there, to whom the Royal Gardens are indebted 

 for many interesting plants, and who has since fallen a victim 

 to disease contracted in that pestilent climate. E. hypocra- 

 teriforme flowered in the Royal Gardens in May of the present 

 year."— {Ibid., t. 6181.) 



Allium naboissiflorum. Nat. ord., Liliaces. Linn., Hex- 



