192 Foreign Notices : — Italy. 



.Rhododendron arboreum Gaesca- .Spiraea lanceolata. 

 mini [?] . grandiflora. 



arboreum grandissimum. Rosa Bknksia; odoratissima. 



leodiense. Siphocampylos bfcolor. 



Smith/i elegans. Luculia gratissima. 



fromontianum. Xathyrus rotundifolius. 



Morednum. Fierbena incisa. 

 campanulaturn hybridum. Tweediawo. 



rosaceum. Aralia japonica. 



Keteler/z. Manettia cordifolia. 

 tigrinum. 



In my next letter, I will give you notices of the plants introduced into 

 Lombardy, or rather into the Milanese, by other horticulturists. 



I have not yet had time to try to make you isometrical views of the above- 

 mentioned garden ; but I shall shortly try my hand. I have been informed 

 that a friend of mine intends engraving a bird's-eye view of this garden ; and, 

 if the speculation succeeds, he intends doing the same of all the most remark- 

 able gardens in Italy. If this is true, I will procure a copy and send you. 

 [We hope that some of the more wealthy of our readers will be induced to 

 encourage such a publication, which could not fail to be a valuable contribu- 

 tion to the progress of landscape-gardening and garden architecture in this 

 country. We shall be happy to receive subscribers' names, and transmit them 

 to Sig. Manetti.] 



In reading what you have said of the Cypress of Soma in the Arb. Brit., 

 p. 2471., I perceive that you have been led into a historical error. You 

 say that it was this tree that was struck by Francis I. with his sword, 

 after the battle of Pavia, in despair. It was not this tree, nor was it a 

 cypress, which Francis I. struck with his sword, but a cypress poplar 

 (Populus fastigiata), which has only been cut down within these last 

 four or five years, as I wrote in a former letter. Soma is more than 36 miles 

 distant from Rocca Mirabello, the place where the act was committed. [We 

 detected this error ourselves, and corrected it in the Supj). to the Arb. Brit., 

 p. 2605. and also p. 2589. of the same Supp., in which we have stated the 

 anecdote to apply to the Lombardy poplar.] 



Enclosed, I send you the drawing of the Laurel CLaurus nobilis*) of I sola 

 Bella, one of the Borromean Islands, on the Verbano (Lago Maggiore). The 

 tree is divided into two trunks, as may be seen by the drawing [which we shall 

 hereafter engrave] ; the union is at the knob (colletto) or vital knot (nodo 

 vitale) ; its height is 19 - 20 metres [62 ft. 10. in., a metre being 39 - 3 in.] ; and the 

 principal trunk, from the ground to the first branches, is 3*60 metres high, and 

 2'70 metres in circumference. No one has been able to inform me of the age 

 of this tree ; it must, however, be nearly three centuries old, if not more, and 

 consequently anterior to the formation of the garden. It is now in decay, and, 

 as you may see by the drawing, it has been headed down, to try to invigorate 

 it. Napoleon cut an N in it with a penknife. 



I will send you, in another letter, a list of plants which live and thrive 

 in the open air in this mild climate, rendered temperate not by its geographical 

 position, but by the lake. To give you an idea of this, it is sufficient to men- 

 tion that Epiphyllum speciosissimum, Zamia integrifolia, Z. horrida, Cycas 

 revoluta, and Acacia latifolia, thrive without shelter. But, with respect to the 

 laurels (Xaurus nobilis) on the shores of our lakes, it is not a rare thing to 

 find very fine ones : for example, in the garden of Mr. Compton, your counti - }'- 

 man, whose villa is about five miles distant from Como, there are some astonish- 

 ingly beautiful trees, amongst which there is one 16*72 metres [54 ft. 10 in.] high, 

 and 0*30 metres in diameter ; another 15'80 metres high, and 028 metres in 

 diameter ; and various others 15'20 metres high, and 0*20 metres in diameter. 



The Truffle. Many have been the attempts to cultivate the truffle (Tuber 

 cibarium Sibth.), both before and after the publication of the method of culti- 

 vation by M. Von Bernholz, but they have all failed. It is from Piedmont 



