General Notices. 277 



summers of Darjeeling and London differ but 3 or 4 deg., the springs and 

 autumns show a difference of 10 and 12 deg. This accounts for the ex- 

 citable nature and early growth of many of our half-hardy Indian plants, 

 as well as the tendency of many such to grow to a late period in the 

 autumn. 



It is true that plants originally tender will always remain tender, and 

 while there is but small hope that we can ever accustom these glorious tree 

 Rhododendrons to forget the earlier and warmer springs and autumns of the 

 Sikkimhimalaya, and so perform all the necessary functions of growth 

 within our four or five summer months, instead of extending it, as in India, 

 over eight or nine, still there are many and good grounds for hope. The 

 skill of the cultivator has already subordined to his use the valuable proper- 

 ties of color of the tree Rhododendron of Nepal, and he will assuredly try, 

 nor is he very likely to fail, to extract, from the tender kinds in question, a 

 still richer product. The Rhododendron hybridest has already introduced 

 into the common hardy Rhododendrons the brilliant scarlet of the R. arbo- 

 reum of Nepal, and by the aid of this one species there is now an entirely 

 new race of hardy Rhododendrons springing up, which, in a very few years 

 more, will have done for Rhododendrons what the Garths, the Forsters, the 

 Catleughs, the Becks, the Gaineses, &c., have done for the Pelargonium. 

 And all this will be greatly accelerated by the discovery of these new forms 

 of the genus, some, if not all, of which will soon appear among the living 

 plants in the collections of this country. 



It is remarked in the preface : — 



" It does not appear on record by whom the tree Rhododendron was 

 first introduced into Europe ; probably by Dr. Wallich, about the year 

 1827." 



The editor has here fallen into a slight error ; we have reason to know 

 that the late Mrs. Beaumont, of Bretton Hall, received from Dr. Wallich, 

 or at least from Calcutta, seeds of the tree Rhododendron as early as 1815 

 or 1818, and from which several hundred plants were raised, and in 1824 

 there were at least forty or fifty plants, forming several beds or plantations 

 upon the open lawn at that place, protected during winter. In 1824, many 

 of these plants were from four to five feet in height, and bushy in propor 

 tion . Among these seedling plants, some had leaves fifteen inches in length , 

 and others indicated great variety in the foliage. In reference to this spe- 

 cies, it is remarked that, on the authority of Major Madden, Sir James Ed- 

 ward Smith gives the height of the tree at twenty feet, and it is added, 

 " he might safely have doubled that measurement." Trunks of the tree 

 Rhododendron have been found to girth fourteen feet, at five feet from the 

 ground. 



" The Rhododendron ponticum, which inhabits the mountains of Asia 

 Minor, and extends as far west as Spain and Portugal, together with 

 R. ferrugineum, and R. hirsutum, of the European Alps, R.Dahuricum, of 

 Silesia, R. chamsecistus, of the Austrian and Piedmontese mountains, 

 R. maximum, of the United States of America, and the Arctic, R. 

 Lapponicum, were all kinds known to Linnaeus, and to the botanical world. 



