28 GARDEN AND FARM TOPICS. 



liberally rewarded. A class with almost unlimited num- 

 bers of varieties has been produced, that, for the size of 

 flower, beauty of form, size and strength of plant, 

 together with the enormous length of flower spike, are 

 entirely unknown to the species. So popular have these 

 hybrids become that the species are only to be found in 

 botanical collections. 



HYBRID GLADIOLUS. 



The hybridization of any popular tribe, particularly 

 when it is attended with so little labor, in proportion 

 to the results produced, as in this class, is speedily 

 carried to an extent which renders characteristic distinc- 

 tions indefinable ; and perhaps the introduction of the 

 numberless names which necessarily arise out of such 

 a circumstance is to be regretted, as occasioning difficulty 

 and labor beyond what most cultivators are disposed to 

 submit to. For the purposes of sale, however, and also 

 to enable the producer to recommend very particular 

 sorts to dealers and amateurs, it is essential that every 

 seedling or variety that is at all deserving of being per- 

 petuated should have a distinctive name. The many 

 hundred named garden varieties of Gladioli are descend- 

 ants of G. Gandavensis, but how and where this variety 

 was produced has been for a long time an open question ; 

 why, we could never fully understand, for we have the 

 word of one of the most prominent horticulturists in the 

 world, Louis Van Houtte, whose word was authority 

 whenever given, that it was produced at Ghent, and was 

 a cross between G. psittacinus and G. cardinalis. This 

 we should consider a full settlement of the question ; not 

 so, however ; for the late Hon. and Rev. William Her- 

 bert, an acknowledged authority on bulbs, says Mr. Van 



