42 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Eand read from the " Gardeners' Monthly," for May, 1865, 

 Vol. VII, p. 144, the following account of the origin of the Isabella 

 Sprunt : — 



" The new rose advertised by Mr. Buchanan in this number, the 

 Catherine Sprunt, is not a seedling from, but a sport of Safrano, 

 which originated some years ago in the garden of the Rev. James 

 Sprunt, of Kenansville, North Carolina, a rare lover of roses, and 

 a keen observer of all their peculiarities. He discovered a branch 

 on his Safrano rose that, instead of the usual orange tint of 

 Safrano, had flowers of a pure canary yellow. He propagated 

 from this branch, and the truly valuable variety, Catherine Sprunt, 

 as Ave saw it with the raiser, is the result." 



In a note published in the same journal for January, 1866, Vol. 

 _VIII, p. 21, Mr. Sprunt, speaking of the article above quoted, 

 says : — 



" And here I would observe that, in the article to which I have 

 referred, you give a correct statement of the origin of Buchanan's 

 Isabella (not Catherine, as he had it) Sprunt." 



Mr. Wilder remarked on the permanence of sports ; he had 

 found those of the camellia quite as permanent as the original 

 varieties. There is a strong tendency to sport in hj^^brids. In 

 answer to a question as to what constitutes a sport, he pointed to 

 a rose bush on the table bearing several red roses, and said that if 

 that bush should produce a white rose, it would be what- is called 

 by florists a " sport." The Abby Wilder camellia, a white variety, 

 is remarkable for its propensity to sport. It has given a dark 

 flesh-colored variety, a clear rose, and a flesh-color with distinct 

 stripes. The first, which was dedicated to a daughter, Grace 

 Sherwin Wilder, has not departed from the type for twelve or fif- 

 teen years ; the second is called Abby Tryphosa. Two days 

 before he took off two grafts from the striped kind to perpetuate 

 it. Mr. Ilovey's Anna Maria Hovey has, with Mr. Wilder, always 

 brought a flesh-colored flower. 



Mr. Hovey said that the subject of sports is an extremely inter- 

 esting one. There is a variety of the Safrano rose known as 

 Safrano a Fleurs Rouge. He read a notice from the " Gardeners' 

 Chronicle" of experiments by M. Zanone Zen, of Venice, in pro- 

 ducing new varieties of roses by grafting on different stocks. Mr. 



