94 8 



CYDONIA. 



SUPPLEMENT 



CYDONIA. 



Strong bulbs will give three spikes in one 

 season, each spike bearing twelve to 

 twenty pink flowers 6 inches across, with 

 buds a deeper red, and opening in suc- 

 cession, so that the display lasts for some 

 weeks. The roots of established plants 

 go down 4 or 5 ft. and the ground 

 should therefore be well prepared before 

 planting, and the bulbs may then be left 

 alone for ten years or more, feeding them 

 freely with liquid manure during summer. 

 They then increase rapidly in size and 

 strength, growing into majestic clumps 

 many feet across. When planting, there 

 should be drainage arranged if the 

 ground is at all wet, and the soil deeply 

 worked, adding some well decayed 

 manure, or a dressing of crushed bones, 

 which is really better. The manure 

 should not come in contact with the 

 bulbs, which are best started in pots and 

 planted out when the roots are active, 

 those put into place at once after a 

 removal being often very slow to start 

 away. The bulb should be so deeply 

 planted as to show only the upper part 

 of the neck, the whole being surrounded 

 with clean sand and the crowns covered 

 up with leaves and bracken during 

 winter. In cold places a spot at the foot 

 of a south wall is best, and shelter for the 

 leaves from cutting winds should be con- 

 sidered even where the extra warmth is 

 unnecessary. There are two or three 

 colour varieties album, pure white and 

 the best of all, its flowers being beauti- 

 fully refined though fewer ; intermedium, 

 with pale pink flowers ; and a form in 

 which the flowers are white with rosy 

 streaks. 



C. crassifolium. A scarce kind from 

 South Africa, which grows well in warm 

 places and in certain soils, such as in the 

 Cambridge Botanic Garden. It flowers 

 earlier than C. capense, in June and July, 

 with compact heads of flowers nine to 

 twelve in number ; many of them open 

 at the same time. They are 3 ins. 

 long, white turning to deep rose, and very 

 fragrant. Though the bulbs flower freely, 

 they increase slowly. 



C. yemense is also hardy in the south- 

 west and other favoured parts of Britain, 

 bearing large sweet-scented flowers of a 

 beautiful satin-white colour. 



CYDONIA (Quince). Among the most 

 beautiful of hardy flowering shrubs long 

 known as Pyrus. Free, hardy, of rich colour, 

 and easily grown. Few shrubs have given 

 so many fine varieties ranging in colour 

 from deep crimson and scarlet through 

 shades of cherry and salmon red to pink and 

 pure white. The flowers also are larger 



and very abundant, there is much variety 

 in habit of growth, and whereas the old 

 kinds are best on a wall in our colder 

 districts, these garden forms do well any- 

 where in the open in the south. They 

 thrive in almost any soil and even on 

 chalk, though what they like best is a 

 deep warm loam, and what most tries 

 them are dry and sandy heath soils, where 

 they grow slowly and flower less freely. 

 Their flowers continue in succession dur- 

 ing several months, and branches cut 

 while in bud will open prettily in a room 

 and last fresh for a considerable time in 

 water. A bold group of these shrubs is 

 seldom seen in gardens, yet there can be 

 no more charming sight. A single plant 

 on a lawn will reach sometimes 20 ft. 

 through and 10 ft. high, and there are 

 few more showy standard trees than a 

 trained Japan Quince. There is a pretty 

 use for the plant as a hedge, which grows 

 as thick as Quick, bears any needful 

 cutting, and is a charming sight in flower 

 and in fruit. The one care needed is 

 in transplanting, when any except quite 

 young plants are apt to fail ; large ones 

 are only safe out of pots. Increase by 

 layers, notched and laid down in the 

 autumn, which root strongly in a twelve- 

 month. Syn. Pyrus japonica. 



C.japonica. VARIETIES. These are numer- 

 ous, and give good variety in growth and 

 colour, though many are much alike. Among 

 the best are Knap Hill Scarlet, with large 

 crimson-scarlet flowers ; niralis, the best pure 

 white ; albo-cincta, in which they are tinted 

 pink ; coccinea, bright scarlet ; princeps, glow- 

 ing crimson ; umbilicata, bright pink and one 

 of the best, its flowers thickly clustered and 

 yet well distributed ; Moerloosei, crimson-scar- 

 let ; rosea, rosy-pink ; sulphured, pale creamy- 

 yellow ; and cardinalis, deep purplish-crimson. 

 New continental forms are Baltzii, with rosy- 

 red flowers on the new wood ; Mallardi, rosy 

 flowers edged with white ; Gaugardi, salmon- 

 red ; semperflorens, with a very long succes- 

 sion of bright red flowers ; and macrocarpa 

 and Columbia, remarkable for their large 

 fruits, which in the last kind sometimes 

 measure 10 ins. in circumference. There 

 are beside several kinds of distinct habit, 

 useful for planting in the rock-garden where 

 the larger kinds would be out of place, and 

 yet where the trailing shoots show to per- 

 fection. These are C. Sargenti, from the 

 mountains of Japan, with a semi-prostrate 

 habit and rather small, bright red flowers 

 borne very freely. C. pygmaea is only 2 ft. 

 high, of a more erect habit, and so near 

 C. Maulei in appearance and colour of its 

 orange-salmon flowers that it is supposed to 

 have come from that kind. C. Simonii, a 

 seedling form of C. japonica, is of prostrate 

 habit, with large blood-red flowers of rich 

 effect in the rock-garden. 



