" MALMAISONS " 35 



with present day gardening than the fact of one, two, 

 three, and more structures in private gardens being 

 devoted solely to the cultivation of this one plant, some- 

 times solely to the one variety the Pink Malmaison. 



There long remained the utmost uncertainty accom- 

 panied by the vaguest guesses as to where and when the 

 original Souvenir de la Malmaison with its blush-coloured 

 flower originated. It is now clear that it is not nearly 

 so old a plant as some have conceived, it having been 

 raised from seed by M. Laine, a Frenchman, in 1857. 

 Mr. David Thomson cultivated the plant at Archerfield 

 in 1864, having received the stock from Mr. William 

 Young of Edinburgh. I have been at some trouble 

 trying to secure trustworthy evidence as to the time 

 when and the place where each of the sports originated, 

 and I think I may safely aver that " Lady Middleton " 

 appeared at Luffness in East Lothian in the year 1870, 

 and the Pink Malmaison a few years later (1875) in a 

 garden near Musselburgh. It is a curious trait in con- 

 nection with this trio derived from a common stock that 

 the last-named is accounted the easiest to cultivate and 

 Lady Middleton the most capricious. 



Of late years a large number of new Malmaisons, 

 the result of successful cross-fertilization, has been pro- 

 duced, at first by Mr. Martin R. Smith, who latterly has 

 been joined by others, by whom the varieties have been 

 greatly improved. The earliest attempt at increasing 

 varieties appears to have been made in Belgium, but the 

 flowers were of no great beauty, though in Madame 

 Arthur Warocque, a scarlet form, there was a decided 

 advance. But it appears that the increase of new 

 varieties of Malmaisons has received a great impetus on 

 the Continent during the past few years, where, as well 

 as in England, there is now a large number of varieties 

 in cultivation. 



It will, perhaps, appear strange to growers of the 



