164 Notes and Recollections of a Tour. 



Clapham, Mr. Groom. — Mr. Groom has long been well 

 known for his splendid collections of tulips, ranunculuses, 

 &c. He was formerly located at Walworth ; but the land 

 becoming valuable, he removed to his present place a few 

 years since, and his grounds here are yet but partially under 

 cultivation. The situation is on the Clapham road, about 

 four or five miles from St. Paul's, and convenient from the om- 

 nibuses, which run directly by many times a day. 



Mr. Groom's principal trade has been in tulips and other 

 florist's flowers, but within a few years he has turned his 

 attention to the production of the newer and more choice 

 greenhouse plants, and at the present time he had a good 

 collection. 



The first objects which attracted our attention, on entering 

 a small greenhouse fronting the street, were the Japan lilies, 

 of which we made mention in our last volume, (X. p. 376.) 

 Their greatest beauty was past, but still they were sufii- 

 ciently in flower to show how magnificent had been the dis- 

 pla^^ We had never before seen the L. speciosum in flower, 

 and, as this variety blooms later than the others, it was in 

 greater perfection. The strongest bulb had a stem four feet 

 high, with upwards of twenty fine flowers ; h. punctatum 

 was exceedingly showy, and we noticed several specimens 

 with two or three bulbs in one pot, which had thrown up 

 stems ^ye to six feet, and numbering one hundred buds and 

 flowers. L. punctatum and album have a greater tendency 

 to divide in the root than the speciosum ; and while the lat- 

 ter almost invariably threw up only one stem, the others 

 threw up from two to five ; the former, too, grow higher. 



Mr. Groom has been highly successful in cultivating the 

 Japan lilies, and he has undoubtedly the best stock of any 

 one in the country. L. speciosum is exceedingly rare ; but 

 the others, especially album, much more abundant. A new 

 one, called roseum, has been lately introduced, and was yet 

 small ; it is similar to speciosum, but the flowers are paler. 

 L. testaceum, a yellowish one, we did not find in bloom. L. 

 Album, in the open ground, had proved perfectly hardy, and 

 a bed of it was now rapidly advancing to bloom. On 

 our visit to the garden in October we found them still in full 

 flower, though then beginning to fade. Taken as a class, no 



