HORTICULTURAL CHRONICLE. 



— The Exhibition at Florence. — As we are writing 

 this we are just upon the point of starting for Florence 

 from whence our next communication will be dated. The 

 influx of strangers to the " City of Flowers „ is already very 

 great, and this .grand Exhibition is assuming all the attrac- 

 tions of a great national festival. Our note-books will rapidly 

 fill, and we hope to lay their contents before our readers in 

 our next issue. There is no doubt that Horticulture has made 

 great progress in Italy during the last few years, the extent 

 ofwhich,weinthe more northern regions are , to a certain 

 degree, ignorant. The time has gone past when the Italian 

 market gardeners, according to the anecdote of Alphonse 

 Karr, threw their cauliflower plants into holes in the ground 

 and saw no more of them for three months afterwards , when 

 they went to cut them. A hasty run through Italy during 

 the past winter has convinced us of the existence of great 

 improvements in cultivation and an increase of amateurs 

 cultivators. The Exhibition of Florence will unfold to our 

 view the results of this forward step. 



— Speemacoce hispida and the Baobab. — We have 

 lately received a letter from M. Contest-Lacour, our corres- 

 pondent at Pondicherry, from whick we make the following 

 extracts : 



" A careful analysis and trial of the seed of Spermacoce 

 hispida prove it to contain very similar properties to those 

 of the coffee. I send you some seed, and with it a quantity 

 of the woody fibre of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata), which 

 will, I think, be useful in the manufacture of paper. These 

 qualities need confirmation from the experiments of com- 

 petent men , for the discovery would be of the inestimable , 

 value in the colonies, Senegal, for instance, where immense 

 tracts of waste land might be profitably cultivated, etc. „ 



We shall examine the objects forwarded by M. Contest- | 

 Lacour with great interest. The confirmation of his antici- 

 pations would , indeed , be of importance , and we shall soon 

 know what to think in the matter. 



— Lilium aueatum with double flowees. — Last year, 

 the Lily Royal of Japan shewed a curious du pi ih'cution in 

 the garden of M. Boisgiraud, an amateur at Tours. The 

 Horticultural Journals chronicled the fact , which , according 

 to M. Krelage of Haarlem , is neither new nor rare. In the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle for 1865 there is an account of a semi- 

 double and also of a completely double-variety. And in 1866 

 the same Journal mentions another instance of the same 

 kind. Moreover several other species of Lilium are known 

 as having presented the same phenomenon. 



— Tempoeaey haemlessness of Nettles. — M. Du- 

 chartre has received a letter from M. Naudin of Collioures 

 (Eastern-Pyrenees) in which the learned member of the 

 Institute communicates an interesting observation made by 

 himself, after a very violent storm of wind of 24 hour's dura- 

 tion , when all the Nettles in the country around had lost 

 the power of stinging. They were handled with impunity, not 



ever, they lvgainet 



meeting of the Soa 



made the fact kn<e 



and perfectly harmless. 



LfflBDfl BOWICUWOBAL Soru-TV : The eleventh 



Exhibition of this Society will he held in the Horticultural 

 Gardens on June 10, 11, and 12. 



The KFFEcrs OS the i.atk FaoSTSOH Vegetation. - 

 The accounts received from different parts of the country, 

 and our own observations, show that the repealed sharp 

 frosts have done a vast amount of injury, not only to 

 the fruit crops, the extent of which in many cases cannot 

 be correctly estimated at present, but they have also 

 destroyed the beauty of ornamental trees and shrubs in 

 many localities. And in some of the more favoured spots, 



has been greater in proportion to the more advanced state 

 of vegetation. Not merely tender exotic plants have suffered. 



native flora. Without a ureat deal of labour many '* orna- 

 mental „ shrubs will afford anything hut a j 



