320 GENERAL REVIEW. 



the Zonal or Horse-shoe Pelargonium is the earliest culti- 

 vated species (1710), and a white-margined seedling or sport 

 soon followed, and is recorded in Miller's Dictionary, ed. 8, 

 1768. According to Sir Thomas More, in his 'Flower Gar- 

 den Displayed,' this variety was grown at that date " in curious 

 gardens," and is believed to have originated in Parisian gar- 

 dens. Mr Grieve mentions Miller's Variegated as one of the 

 earliest of variegated forms in cultivation. P. Fothergillii is 

 one of the earliest improvements on P. zonale, and is figured 

 by Andrews in his ' Geraniaceae,' and he describes it as " the 

 largest-flowered zone-leaved Geranium, first raised by the late 

 Dr Fothergill about the year 1780." This plant was formerly 

 much used in flower-garden arrangements, and is interesting as 

 the starting-point or progenitor of the late Donald Beaton's 

 Nosegay varieties. One of the next striking varieties was a 

 gold-edged form of P. zonale, known in gardens as Golden 

 Circle, and this was superseded in 1823 by Golden Chain, which 

 differed mainly in having a broader and brighter golden margin 

 to its green leaves. We have no records of the origin of these 

 varieties ; but they were possibly sports. P. inqninans, the 

 original type of the Scarlet or Tom Thumb varieties, appears 

 to have been first cultivated by Bishop Compton at Fulham in 

 1714. There is a remarkably strong-growing form of this species 

 which used formerly to be much grown on greenhouse walls 

 under the name of the Giant Tom Thumb. P. inquinans is figured 

 by John Martyn in his ' Historia Plantorum Rariorum ' (1728) ; 

 and, according to Andrews, it had become scarce in its original 

 form so early as 1809, so that it soon appears to have been 

 used by the florist for hybridising with P. zonale; and these 

 two species are the types whence our " bedding " varieties have 

 been derived. The rosy-flowered variety known as Mangles's 

 Variegated is supposed to have originated as a sport from 

 Fothergillii. Previous to 1848, several white-margined varieties 

 of one or both the above-named species were known and used 

 in flower-garden arrangements, but their flowers were thin- 

 petalled, and poor in form. About 1848-49, however, Mr King- 

 horn raised a seedling of remarkable excellence, having broad 

 white-margined leaves and scarlet broad-petalled flowers ; and 

 this, evidently a cross between some of the white-margined 

 sports of P. zonale and the scarlet-flowered P. inquinans, was 

 sent out by Messrs Lee, of Hammersmith, under the name of 

 Flower of the Day. Numerous other forms followed, but 

 nothing of striking importance until 1855, when Mr Peter 

 Grieve raised the well-known Tricolor, Mrs Pollock, which 

 still remains one of the best habited and most ornamental. 



