478 JVallc rowul the Garden of 



wall of the gardener's eottaj^e Is ornamented with shrubs trained over it ; 

 a licaltliv Bour.sault's rose, bein>; one of them, is now finely in flower: a 

 very narrow border at the wall's foot is occupied Inafew species of plants 

 which have been found adaptat)le to that situation. Sheds wing the 

 gardener's house to the right and left, and, w ith a room for the accommo- 

 dation of tlie men (see Vol. VII. p. 617.), make up the whole back of the 

 range. This being a northern aspect, here, during summer, is kept a 

 limited but select collection of potted alpine plants, among which that 

 tiny exquisite, Linaria alpina, was about to bloom profusely, and Litho- 

 spermnm maritimum (Pulmonaria maritinia tiiat used to be) was display- 

 ing its strikingly glaucous foliage, and Mitella diphyila was exhibiting its 

 glistening jet black seeds in its opening capsules, shaped precisely like 

 diminutive mitres, whence the generic name. In this collection stands a 

 plant, not now blooming, but well deserving mention here, i^anunculus 

 bulbosus var. ochroleucus ; it was j)icked up in some neighbouring mea- 

 dow, b} that observant and original botanist, Mr. David Bishop, curator of 

 the Botanic (iarden at Belfast, and has, for three seasons in succession, 

 produced its blossoms of the palest yellow* : it is a very cognisable and a 

 permanent variety, and, as such, is insertetl in the just published Additional 

 Supplement to Loudon's Hortus Britannicus. It was remarked that the 

 range traverses the garden across its centre, but the half behind the 

 range is much the smaller, and wholly occupied by vegetables and the 

 forcing-frames and conveniences, except a sunk pit, with a walk along its 

 back, inside, for the culture of the more showy tender OrchidciE and 

 AmaryWidcce. 



To have done w ith the borders, I will name some half a dozen indivi- 

 duals, which, on this occasion, happened most particularly to arrest my 

 attention : — A species of Yucca gloriosa was densely in bloom, too 

 densely to make the most of itself; G^eum coccineum and Quilli/on; 

 P3?6nia edulis Whitley/, edulis fragrans, and edulis Ilumcv; Campanula ma- 

 crantha, very fine; ylVum iJracunculus, especially so, one clump of it had not 

 fewer than five extremely large spathes expanded together, ami more yet 

 to be expanded; ylnchusa italica, C'entaurea macrocephala, Pr'\s ochro- 

 Icuca, the French white double rocket, and numerous others, which I must 

 omit to n)eution. This French white double rocket thrives far better about 

 London than the old kind, has a longer and laxer raceme, the flowers, 

 individually, being farther apart, and, I think, larger, and quite as fragrant 

 in the evening as those of the olil kind. Of a gigantic variety of the 

 Norman candytuft (/beris umbellata) numerous plants, |)laced singly, at 

 intervals, along the border, were in blossom. This is a valuable ornament; 

 it attains the height of 2 ft., and sometimes beyoiul this ; and the usual 

 colour of the species is, in many of the plants, nuich increased in intensity : 

 the efl(L'ct of the large corymb of umbels, which each plant forms, is a mass 

 of colour of the greatest value to the piu'poses of the decorative gardener. 

 Among curious plants was an admirable clump of the yJ'llium nigrum, 

 displaying not fewer than six or eight fine umbels of flowers; Phlomis 

 tnberosa ; .Spira-'a Filipendula, double-flowered, which is conunon about 

 Bayswater; ylsphudelus creticus, which seems as if a more elegant edition 

 of the prevalent //. Intens; and two fine j)lants, copiously in blossom, of 

 that hybriil Digitalis obtained from seeils of D. anibigua, which had been 

 artificially im|)regnated with the pollen of (iloxin/w speciosa, as already 

 noticed in this iNIagazine ( Vol. VII. p. oH-i., in the note). The flowers 

 of the hybrid difl'cr from those of D. ambigua in being slightly larger, more 

 fleshy in texture, and in having the yellow ground almost obliterated, or 

 coloured over with a reililish one, the colour being now, |)erhaps, a biiflred 

 one; the leaves are those oil), ambfgiui, nnuh increased in ^ize, anil, I think, 

 in pubescence and pcrhajis in succnlency. //Uthyrus latifolius var.albiflorus, 

 which flowered so finely in this garden last autumn, is now rising strongly. 



