of Edinburgh, Session 1880-81. li 



healthily in his garden, as were also four plants of Myrsine UrvUlei, 

 two of which had been in the open all last winter; plants of Lepto- 

 spei'mum scoparmm, " ^lanuku," had also stood out quite safely 

 during the hist two or three winters. Since Dr Traill introduced, 

 about half-a-dozen years since, five or six kinds of shrubby Veronica-'^, 

 their flowers are fertilised, probably through insect agency, and self- 

 sown plants yearly spring up, many of which are evidently hybrids, 

 so curiously varied in foliage and flowers as to render the naming of 

 the original stock difficult. A cross between V. deciissata and V. 

 bitxifulia is so exactly like a florist's variety of V. Devoniana that 

 only a practised eye could distinguish them. 



E, G. Loder, Esq., Floore, Weedou, Northamptonshire, writes, on 



Xovember 12, desiring that Yucca TrecuU.ana be tried in the open, 



in perfectly drained rockwork. Messrs Veitch had a splendid 



plant in their rockwork for years, until spoiled when flowering in 



1878. Plants of Yucca august i folia were sent, grown in one of his 



open borders, from seeds collected by Mr Loder, in Colorado; they had 



stood the brunt of two severe winters unharmed without protection. 



Yucca angustifolia var. mitis, and some other varieties from further 



south in New Mexico are more tender. " Yucca baccata I found in 



the south of Colorado, near Trinidad, on the borders of New 



Mexico. Echinocei'eu--i Fendleri has magnificent purple flowers. I 



sent a plant, in flower, to Kew last spring, and Sir Joseph Hooker 



was much pleased with it, and had it figured in the Botanical 



Magazine. Echinocereu-s phainiceus and E. gonacanthus have scarlet 



flowers. All the plants I have seen in Europe named E. phamiceus 



have been I believe E. gonacanthus. MammilJaria vivipara has 



pretty rose-coloured flowei-s. Echinocactu.s Simjisoiii is the earliest 



to bloom in spring ; the flower-buds come up from the centre of 



the plant (being a true Echinocactus), but as the plant grows the 



flowers get pushed down, as it were ; and towards the end of 



summer (looking at the position of the dried-up flowers) one would 



think that the plant had flowered at the side like a Mamimllaria. 



It is a very interesting plant ; it reaches 13,000 feet in Colorado; 



my plants came from 10,000 feet." ^Ir Loder sent Cacti from a 



cold frame in his garden where they had been during the last two 



severe winters ; they all flowered splendidly both in the spring of 



1879 and 1880. A plant or two of each species out in the open 



air, at the foot of a wall, where some overhanging ivy wards off 



the snow and much of the rain, "withstood the cold of last winter, 



when the thermometer indicated 32" of frost. Beside them. Agave 



virginica also withstood the cold and flowered this summer in the 



