Horticultural Society and Garden. 34 1 



flowering plum from the Isle of Wight; and some fruit of the Glycosrms 

 citrifolia from the garden of the Society. This fruit has a sweetish taste, 

 and resembles that of the white or amber currant in appearance. There 

 were likewise exhibited a map of the island of St. Michael's, and a drawing 

 of a proliferous-headed Chinese pine-apple. 



April 18. A paper by the president was read on pears. Mr. Knight had 

 begun so early as 1810 to impregnate the blossoms of the swan's egg with 

 different varieties of the finer French pears, with a view of producing some 

 new and improved sorts, which might be grown as standards and espaliers. 

 A number of" the seedlings having now fruited, a few were selected which 

 appeared to have all the hardiness of the swan's egg, with some of the high 

 flavour of the French sorts. Mr. Knight thinks these maybe advantageously 

 introduced into general cultivation ; but as the first year's fruits of a seed- 

 ling are not always a fair sample of what the tree will ultimately produce, 

 he is unwilling to recommend them till they have been farther tried ; and 

 in order that they may be compared with other sorts in the garden of the 

 Society he has sent grafts, &c. The articles exhibited were, a fine speci- 

 men of what is called Rhododendron fragrans, from the nursery of 

 Messrs. Chandler and Buckingham, elsewhere noticed by us, as a hy- 

 brid, between Azalea pontica and Rhododendron ponticum, in which the 

 habit and general appearance of the latter are united with the fragrance of 

 the former. Two other seedling Rhododendrons, with the prevailing cha- 

 racter of R. Catawbiense, were exhibited by the same cultivators ; a fine 

 specimen of Oncidium altissimum, an epiphyte, with a raceme of brownish 

 flowers above a yard long, from the garden of the Society ; some sea-cale, 

 and tart rhubarb (R. hybridum) very strong; some asparagus; three sorts 

 of forced strawberries, also from the Society's garden ; flowers of Thun- 

 bergia alata, yellow and very fragrant, also from the garden of Robert 

 Barclay, Esq. It was observed by the secretary, respecting the asparagus, 

 that seeds from different parts of Britain and the Continent were in culti- 

 vation in the garden, for the purpose of ascertaining if there really were 

 different varieties of that vegetable, and that as far as the experiment had 

 gone the conclusion seemed to be in the negative. The asparagus is less 

 liable to sport than most plants which have been in high cultivation, and 

 nearly the same thing may be said of the sea-cale. 



A blossom was exhibited of a new species of Camellia, named C Japo- 

 nica Rawesiana, recently imported from China by Capt. Rawes, and pre- 

 sented to Thos. Carey Palmer, Esq. of Bromley. A specimen of woollen net- 

 ting, for protecting wall-trees, was exhibited by Sir Robt. Vaughan ; it can 

 be produced in North Wales for five-pence a square yard. Some early Chas- 

 selas and black Hamburgh grapes, orange and stone-pippin, and Beachamwell 

 apples and Bonchretien pears were exhibited and tasted. The seeds dis- 

 tributed at this and the former meeting were, mountain pink, (Enothera 

 tetraptera, red-fleshed Malta melon, celeriac, white solid cellery, vestia 

 lycioides, snake melon, and wheat of the kind from the straw of which 

 Leghorn hats are made. 



Among the books presented was one by George Bangley, Esq. containing 

 representations of plants worked in silk. But what attracted more attention 

 than any thing else exhibited, were three imitations of plants, in wax, by a 

 French artist, M. Montaban, artificial flower-maker, 225. Piccadilly ; two 

 of the plants were Camellias in pots, with double flowers, and the third 

 was a small orange-tree, with fruit and flowers. The imitation of the leaves 

 and flowers was so perfect, that they would have been taken for realities, 

 had it not been for the stems and the imitation of mould in the pots, 

 neither of which was at all equal to the other parts. 



May 2. Among the books presented were the Bon Jardinier for 1826, 

 which we shall review in a future Number, and a Number of a work on the rare 



