282 Calls at Nurseries 



Road present an improved appearance. Numerous beds have been formed, 

 and several of them furnished with a somewhat extensive stock of hardy 

 bulbous plants. No kinds of plants are capable of contributing more to the 

 interest and beauty of the hardy flower-garden, and yet we know not that any one 

 professedly cultivates a collection of them for sale ; we are glad that Mr. Dennis 

 seems to purpose to do this henceforth. A considerable aggregate of species 

 and varietiesof thefollowing genera are already obvious in the beds: — iVarcissus, 

 Z/eucojum, (Sfcilla, Muscari, Fritillaria, Erythronium, Tidipa, Amaryllis, and 

 iilium. A contribution towards a collection of irises, as well the creeping 

 root-stocked species as the bulbous, is also apparent. Alstrcemen'a pulchella 

 has here, in the free soil, without any protection, exhibited growing verdant 

 herbage, undestroyed by frost through the past winter; while that of A. 

 Pelegrina, growing beside it, has been destroyed by frost more than once. A 

 collection of florists' tulips, in three beds, one of the beds under an awning, is 

 now blooming: they are very beautiful, and among them are choice kinds. A 

 bed of about forty strides long has been made, in a comparatively shaded part, 

 of heath mould, and planted with plants for stools of the choicer varieties of 

 hardy azaleas; these have been layed: some of the little intervals in the bed 

 have in them herbaceous plants which love heath mould : Helonias bullata is 

 one of these. In pots, in gentle hotbeds, the choice Chinese asters have been 

 advanced, in the hope of gathering from them well-ripened seeds in the 

 autumn. In two beds of plants of Clarke, some of the plants are showing 

 flowers : the whole from seeds sown, probably, as those of many annual plants 

 should be in October of the previous year. 



In the nursery in Grosvenor Row, we noted as follows: — The pelargo- 

 niums, in their numerous varieties, and an extensive stock of them, are look- 

 ing in just the youth of their beauty ; they will not be fully blown till 

 June. We asked for the names of a few of the now most esteemed varieties, 

 and gained the following : — Ne plus ultra, Jack of Newbury (this is of a com- 

 pact habit of growth), Admiral Napier (its flowers are splendid), Smith's mag- 

 niflorum, diadematum, Adansdm, concessum, nonpareil, Weltjiedmivi, Master 

 Walter, Clarissa«?»H, fulminans, olympicum. Among the unpublished seed- 

 lings, three possessed of surpassing qualities are in flower ; one of these, which 

 is to be called Dennis's perfection, is in the mode of Smith's magniflorum, but 

 its petals have a fine purple tint, and they form a rounder flower. Some tiny 

 youngsters, but a few months old, from seeds, are under culture; in the hope, 

 doubtless, of their surpassing, like some of their precursors, all others known 

 before them. Of heartseases, now adopted into the florists' affections, and 

 named distinctively in their varieties, Mr. Dennis cultivates a collection : 

 several of the kinds are in bloom, and are beautiful. The following names are 

 those, Mr. Dennis has told us, of desirable kinds : — Invincible, Bang up, Jessica, 

 Prince George, Sol, Pamela, Orestes, violacea, Maid of Athens, John Bull, 

 Appleby's William the Fourth, Lydard's William the Fourth, Lady Bath, 

 Painted lady, Allen's Adelaide, Kentish hero, Crimson bicolor, Lilac major: of 

 these we were struck with Bang up (what an elegant name I) and Pamela. Of 

 additional names told us here, and at Mr. Hogg's, Paddington, these are 

 some : — Achilles, Othello, Reform, Sailor boy, Hill's butterfly, Bunney's Queen 

 Adelaide, and Ajax. Of the varieties of georginas, a most extensive stock of 

 young plants is provided, for supplying the orders of the season, and for plant- 

 ing out in the King's Road Nursery for display in autumn. Some of the kinds 

 already show flower-buds, and one kind, The Maid of St. Leonard's, has a 

 flower expanded. Of the objects which, in the general collection, came under 

 our eye, we name the following : — Plants of Cereus splendidus (see p. 237.) : 

 of Pereskia Bleo, of several gloxinias, of Ribes specidsum, three fine plants of 

 Rhododendron Russelha?zz»n just going out of flower, ikf fmulus Smiths flow- 

 ering ; Primula cortusoides, a group of; a stock of plants of Lobelia speciosa, 

 purpurea, fulgens, splendens, cardinalis, and of a scarlet-flowered new variety, 

 in the way of cardinalis, but with its inflorescence much branched. We shall 

 add, because they interest us, Symplocarpus foe'tidus, Stktme Armeria white 

 corollaed, and the hardy trolliuses ; the last, in the shaded low-lying soil of 



