280 Calls at Nurseries 



The Chelsea Botanic Garden looks, as usual at this season, remarkably well. 

 We found our excellent friend the curator as busy as ever, and as happy as a 

 man can be who enjoys good health, a clear conscience, and a competent in- 

 come, and who is fully occupied in a pursuit altogether to his taste. He 

 pointed out to us a row of the different varieties of (Scilla non scripta, which 

 were planted by the late Mr. Haworth the day before he died ; a Windsor 

 pear, grafted on a quince stock in a cankered state, and beside it a St. Ger- 

 main pear on the same kind of stock, very healthy ; which would seem obviously 

 suggesting, as Mr. Anderson mentioned, the idea, that, to dwarf the Windsor 

 pear, it must be grafted on some other pear^ which had been previously grafted 

 on a quince stock and had thriven. Mr. Anderson has turned out against his 

 walls a number of New Holland shrubs, which, in the dry sandy soil of the 

 Chelsea Garden, may probably live through the winter. We saw several new 

 alpines, and some new hardy trees and shrubs from Nepal and Peru. 



Exotic Nursery, King's Road. — Mr. Knight is erecting some new plant 

 houses and pits, some of which are being heated by Mr. Weeks, on a new and 

 ingenious plan. Three pits or small houses will be heated from one boiler 

 at one end ; either all three at once, or two, or one at a time, as may be con- 

 sidered desirable. 



A considerable importation of plants from China has been sent to Mr. 

 Knight, by J. Reeves, Esq., F.H.S., &c, of Clapham, which is expected to 

 contain several new species. — Cond. 



On May day we had a pleasant stroll through Mr. Knight's houses, in com- 

 pany with the most able foreman, our very intelligent friend, Mr. Alexander 

 Scott. The more mentionable of the plants which we therein saw belong to 

 the orders Orchideae, Ericese, .Rhodoraceae, Leguminosae, and Yrotedcece. 



Mr. Knight's collection of tropical Orchideae is becoming eminent ; for, in 

 addition to his original stock of these plants, and to his having added to it, by 

 purchase, the stock of W. Cattley, Esq., he has farther added to it, by pur- 

 chase, so lately as February last, the collection of the deceased Mrs. Arnold 

 Harrison. The relatives of this amiable lady had found her favourite plants 

 but a painful and ever-present remembrancer of their bereavement, and so 

 resolved to remove them from their sight ; and Mr. Knight has become the 

 fortunate possessor of them. Mr. Richard Harrison has, however, still a fine 

 collection of Orchideae. Mr. Scott has given us the following outline of the 

 contents of the collection lately Mrs. A. Harrison's : — " It is rich in the tribe 

 Vdndece, which is eminently occidental. There are species of the genera On- 

 cidium, Stanhopea, Zygopetalum, Gongora, Corysanthes, Catasetum, Maxil- 

 laria, Bifrenaria, Acropora, Peristeria, &c. In the tribe Epidendreae it is 

 also rich in species of the genera Brassavoh*, Cattleya, Epidendrum, Bletz'a, 

 &c. ; and in the tribe Malaxideae, in species of the genera Pleurothallis, jStelis, 

 Liparis, CceTia, Pholidota, Ceelogyne, Bolbophyilum, E x ria, Dendrobium, &c. 

 Among the small flowering kinds, there are species of Sauroglossum, Neottia, 

 &c. The collection lately Mrs. A. Harrison's includes about 160 named or 

 known species ; and there are, besides, several which have not yet flowered in 

 this country." The plants of this part, and of the whole of Mr. Knight's Or- 

 chideae, are looking in satisfactory health and growth, although Mr. Knight 

 believes that the stove at present assigned to them is not every way congenial 

 to their welfare, and is, in this belief, now having built a new one, which he 

 conceives will be more so. This enterprise cannot fail to earn its own reward, 

 nor, we trust, to produce the excellent effect of promoting greatly the insti- 

 tution of collections of Orchideae among Mr. Knight's customers and visiters. 

 Only very few of the species are now flowering : Maxillaria aromatica, with 

 its rich yolk-of-egg yellow cinnamon-scented flowers, is the most pleasing of 

 these. 



In iMceae § .Rhodoraceae, the following plants are noted in our memoranda. 

 The two well-known often-mentioned trees of .Rhododendron arboreum 

 are bearing heads of their lovely flowers, although fewer of these than they 

 have, in some seasons, produced. Upon one tree the flowers are somewhat 



