A. FEW NOTES ON REPRODUCTION IN HARDY PLANTS. 985 
up with wire is open to criticism; but it seems “the fashion,’ and we 
must submit in the meantime. There is just the question whether or no 
the Tufted Pansy should ever be shown in sprays at all. As a cut flower 
the blooms arranged in stalked glasses, garnished with their own foliage, 
have a good appearance on the table. The Tufted Pansy, however, looks 
best treated as a perennial in an open situation out of doors with masses 
of bloom on dwarf plants, where both habit of plant and quality of bloom 
can ‘be examined. The dwarfer the plants are, with free-flowering 
properties, the more desirable they are. Take ‘Blue Gown’ as a type. 
If every variety had its habit and free-flowering properties we would 
soon possess a race of Tufted Pansies which would supersede all others. 
In time this desirable end will be attained. 
AquineGiA Stuarti.—In May 1880, having plants of Aquilegia 
glandulosa (Grigor, of Forres, N.B.), as sent out in 1848, also Agquilegia 
Witmannit, in pots and in flower, at the same time, I fertilised a flower 
of that species with pollen from A. glandulosa. A ripe pod of seed was 
gathered in less than a month and sown at once. Seven plants lived, to 
be planted out on a sheltered border in the autumn. I had. almost 
forgotten their existence, till in the end of May in the following year a 
floral friend, who was staying here, on looking round before breakfast 
came on the first open bloom on one of the plants. He asked me where 
the plant had come from, as the flower was the finest he had seen of the 
Columbine family. Before referring to my notebook I could hardly tell 
him, but that they were crossed seedlings I knew quite well. The seven 
plants all bore flowers identically the same, the top blooms measuring 
more than four inches across. The following season I took up a quantity 
of the blooms to a meeting of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, and 
showed them to the late Professor Balfour, of Edinburgh University, and 
the late Mr. John Sadler, then Curator of the Botanic Gardens, 
Edinburgh, and many other competent judges, who all considered 
Aquilegia Stuarti a first-rate novelty, and it was there and then named 
by Professor Balfour. The original A. glandulosa I have grown on and 
off for forty years. It is a notoriously shy flowerer, and we used, many 
years ago, to consider it a triumph to get it to display its beauty at all. 
All I claim for A. Stwarti is that it is an improved form of A. glandulosa, 
refined in colour, free flowering, very large and attractive in appearance. 
It is perfectly hardy, and flowers three weeks before other Columbines, 
always coming true from seed. It does not, however, succeed in every 
place, and I know persons who tell me they cannot flower it. After 
several years’ experience in growing and rearing the plant, I recommend 
that a bed be trenched 2 ft. deep, and well enriched below; the bed 
raked smooth, and the seed newly ripened, sown thinly in rows, the plants 
being allowed to remain where they are to flower. The plants, if neces- 
sary, may be thinned to a foot between, and the same distance between 
the rows. In process of time the fine foliage will come to cover the 
entire bed, and there will be abundance of blooms on moderate sound 
stems. With a little rotted manure as a top dressing in the autumn, the 
plants improve in vigour every season, and a three-year-old bed with 
thousands of blue and white flowers is a sight to see. The specimens 
sent to the editor of The Garden were taken at random from a bed of the 
