192 Foreign Jfotices. — Austria. 



one most worthy of notice is C. reticulata^ fourteen feet high, with 

 a head five feet in oircuniference. Near the front lights, separated 

 by the principal passage, are small l)eds, likewise filled with camel- 

 lias planted in the soil; and by the siiles of the pillars, which extend 

 to the back part of the house, are the most beautiful acacias. 



You then pass under arches formed of wire, on which kennedyas 

 and other climbing plants grow, also Dioclea glicinoides, which had 

 alreaily unfolded its splendid deep red flowers, mixed with camellias 

 and acacias fastened to the wire; and on descending a few steps you 

 enter a small house in which the baron has wisely placed the whole 

 collection of plants in small specimens, so that not one may escape 

 notice, and so be perhaps entirely lost, a frequent occurrence in large 

 assen)blages. This collection resembles a living index. 



You next enter another house, constructed exactly like the pre- 

 ceding, in which small plants are most tastefully grouped among 

 tufa; and as you passed through an ornamental arch, and descended 

 a few steps to this house, in like manner you now ascend a few steps 

 to the camellia-house already described, to which adjoins a long row 

 of houses intended to contain at another season of the year thote 

 plants at present grouped in the ojjen air. 



On the left is the orchideous house, in which is a collection of 

 eighty-three genera and nearly two hundred species, most ni them 

 grown on the trunks of trees; or planted in little baskets, from which 

 they hang down. As this was only used as an orchideous house last 

 year, it cannot be expected to be very rich in flowers. Some very 

 fine forms and colors begin to unfold. Among these may be men- 

 tioned, Catasetum luridum, bicornulum, tricolor; Epidendrum cras- 

 sifolium, Oncitlium Baueri Cycnoches Loddi<;es//, Calanthe fuscala, 

 Acropera LoddiiresM, and many other species; some dendrobiums, 

 maxillarias, oncidiums, &c. iVepenthes distillatoria also unfolds its 

 blossoms. This house is heated by steam. 



You next find yourself in a large conservatory with upright lights, 

 in winter chiefly filled with camellias; the next has slantini'^ h hts, 

 and leads to a large saloon, through which you pass to the living- 

 rooms, and, on again reaching the open air, you pass by the terrace 

 already described. 



But another most delightful scene is still reserved, and that is a 

 mosaic picture of flowers, a so called Roccoco garden;* and we h ve 

 to thank the Baron von Hugel for setting the first example of a style, 

 since generally imitated, both here and in the vicinity. A garden 



* Roccoco. — We have hiilierto been in ilie haliit of considering this term as sy- 

 nonymous with what nmy he called the shellwoik arahesque; hut on asking a critical 

 friend for the true meaning of the term, he sent us wliat follows: — 



"Roccoco is one of those words which, although they a.e in vogue both in con- 

 versation and writing, are not to be met with in dictionaries, any more than are the 

 thousand and one terms employed either in millinery or in cookery. All, then fore, 

 that I can say of it is, that it id one which seems to have bepn lately invented by the 

 French, and was first applied to the antiquated frivolous taste of the period of Louis 

 XV. It is now used as a general term of reproach to what is old-fashioned and 

 tasteless in literature and art, and appears to correspond in some degree with our 

 English 'crinkum crankum.' Instead of beintr au courant dujour, dictioiiary-makerg 

 are always half a century behind the rest of the world, and seldom explain the very 

 words one is most at loss to understand — W. H. L." 



