38 



THE GABDENEBS' CHBONICLE. 



[July 14, 1888. 



a fine rose, then cover with a piece of glass, over 

 which place a covering of moss, and place the pan 

 on a shelf in a greenhouse, or cool pit, where the 

 temperature is about 50° at night. Remove the 

 covering as soon as the young plants appear, and 

 place, if not already in that position, near to the 

 glass, to prevent the seedling plants from becoming 

 drawn. As soon as large enough to handle, prick 

 out the plants in 3-inch pots, putting three in each 

 pot ; water, and return to the same position and 

 temperature as they were in before ; afterwards, 

 before they touch, potting them off singly into the 

 same size pots, and attending to them in the way of 

 moisture at the roots, as well as overhead, so as to 

 prevent the leaves being attacked with spider and 

 thrips. The plants should be shifted into larger pots 

 before they get matted at the roots, using the com- 

 post in a rougher state at each succeeding shift. 

 H. W. W. 



Gloeiosa supeeba. 

 This beautiful East Indian plant, known also as 

 Clinostylis, is seldom seen grown well, and a few 

 remarks on its cultivation maybe of value to your 

 readers. The flowers are of an orange and red 

 colonr, and last a week or ten days in perfection. 

 The soil they succeed best in is loam, leaf-mould, old 

 cowdung, and silver-3and in about equal proportions. 

 The first or second week in March is the best time to 

 pot them, to flower in June and July, employing 

 well drained pots three parts filled with soil, in 

 which the tubers should be carefully laid, covering 

 them with 2 inches of soil, the pots to be finally 

 filled up when the shoots are a foot high. No water 

 should be given until the tubers start into growth ; 

 then place the pots in a strong moist heat, watering 

 freely as they require it, and train the plants as 

 growth proceeds. For exhibition purposes four 

 tubers in a 13-inch pot will cover a good-sized 

 balloon trellis ; but for cutting or ordinary decorative 

 purposes one tuber in an 8-inch pot, and the shoots 

 trained to sticks or up a rafter, will have a very good 

 effect. As soon as the flower-buds show the plants 

 will be greatly benefited by a little guano- water 

 given once a week. When flowering is past and the 

 leaves turn yellow water should be gradually with- 

 held, and in December the tubers may be turned 

 carefully out and placed in silver-sand until the next 

 season. W. Hodge. 



the plant to move along. The flower-stem rarely 

 exceeds 3 or 4 inches in height, bearing 3 — 7 deep 

 maroon-purple flowers, with a yellow eye, each of 

 them just under an inch in diameter. This plant, 

 we find, does well on shingle, well elevated on the 

 rockery, and easily increased by division of the 

 branches. 



P. Rusbyi is a comparatively new species, recently 

 described by Greene in the Bulletin of the Torrey Club, 

 viii., p. 112, the original plants having been found, 

 by the gentleman whose name it bears, on the 

 Mogallon Mountains, New Mexico. It has also 

 been found on the summit of Mount Wrightson, and 

 the Santa Rita Mountains, Arizona, by Pringle. 

 With us it is perfectly hardy in the open, having 

 passed through last winter unhurt. Unlike P. 

 suffrutescens, which is an evergreen, this species, 

 by its habit resembling the Himalayan P. sikkim- 

 ensis and P. involucrata, is peculiarly adapted for a 

 climate like that of England. It is quite deciduous, 

 the leaves and stems dying down and forming a little 

 bud, which is easily protected, both from the change 

 of climate and from the feathered tribe, by a handful 

 of fibre, small pebbles, or other porous covering. In 

 habit, &c, it resembles P. Cusickiana, but is larger 

 in all its parts. The leaves 2 — 6 inches long, very 

 thin, with an oblong blade, tapering to barely winged 

 petiole ; flower-stem 6 — 7 inches high, bearing 3 — 10 

 deep purple-yellow-eyed flowers, an inch in diameter ; 

 tube twice longer than the calyx ; limb obcordate. 

 This species is certainly a great acquisition to our 

 already large list of Primroses, its value being 

 enhanced by its flowers appearing just after the 

 European and before the late Himalayan. D. D. 

 (To be continued.) 



AMERICAN PRIMROSES. 



Geowees of Primulas will find the American 

 species of no little value as late flowerers, in addition 

 to the Himalayan kinds now so plentiful in our 

 gardens. Within the last half-dozen years great 

 strides have been made in this genus, not so much in 

 numbers as in the length of time over which the 

 flowering season extends; indeed, with careful 

 management, we may have some of the Primroses 

 all the year round. 



America gives eleven species, six of which are 

 peculiar to that continent, all charming flowers, 

 capable of great range of variation and develop- 

 ment, and worthy a first place in all collections of 

 hardy flowers. These are, P. angustifolia, P. Cusic- 

 kiana, P. mistassinica, P. Parryi, P. Rusbyi, and 

 P. suffrutescens ; while P. nivalis, P. sibirica, P. 

 farinosa, P. cuneifolia, and P. borealis, are also 

 widely distributed in Asia and Europe. 



P. suffrutescens, in flower now, is one of the most 

 interesting Primroses we have yet seen. It is found 

 at elevations of 9000—11,000 feet above the sea-level, 

 on exposed rocks, Sierra Nevada, above the Yosemite 

 Valley, Silver Mountains, &c. It was first disco- 

 vered by Bridges, who describes the thick matted 

 roots as filling the crevices of the rocks, and that 

 they are more creeping than any other species — facts 

 which are fully borne out by the plant as we know it 

 in cultivation. The leaves are thick and leathery, 

 spatulate, and coarsely toothed, somewhat like 

 minima at the apex. Crowded near the growing 

 point, those behind dying off, leaving bare stems, 

 which throw out roots on the under-surface, enabling 



Roses. 



A PROTEST AGAINST DISBUDDING. 

 A high authority urged the removal of all the 

 side buds of Roses with stick or toothpick, and 

 this as seasonable work for the month of June, 1888. 

 It is hoped that no one save exhibitors, in search of 

 fat flowers for their Rose boxes, have taken this 

 advice, and that even among these may be found a 

 remnant with sufficient taste left to spare the buds 

 to grace their show blooms. Eor over full-blown 

 Roses, however beautiful and large, were never meant 

 to bloom, nor stand up, nor droop, alone, else would 

 the graceful garniture of side buds not be given. 

 Virtually these last touches of artistic grace and 

 finish are withheld from a few of our Roses, such as 

 the rank and file of the blooms ofMarechal Niel. 

 It is only needful to turn from these bald, though 

 huge masses of gold, to the smaller but profusely 

 budded blooms of Celine Eorestier, Trioinphe de 

 Rennes, and La France, to see at a glance the artistic 

 value of bud garniture or support to Rose blooms. 



We have it on the same authority that the ex- 

 hibitor never neglects and that the amateur seldom 

 practises disbudding. It is to be hoped that the 

 latter is true now, and will become more so in the 

 future, and that, in fact, the two words seldom or 

 never may be transposed, so that the sentence may read 

 thus — " The exhibitor seldom practises disbudding, 

 the amateur never." Why, indeed, shouldjthe amateur 

 who grows his Roses for their beauty in the garden, 

 or in the house, pinch out their side buds with tooth- 

 pick or blunt stick ? The indignant Roses are up in 

 arms all over the garden, and the rustle of their 

 opening buds echoes back the question, Why ? " Wild 

 Rose " not only counsels disbudding, but gives his 

 reasons for it. Here they are : — " Where a few Roses 

 are left to cluster together, they are poor in quality ; 

 and if you cut one it has a moderately short stalk, 

 while if you cut the whole bunch you might as well 

 have had one good Rose as a cluster of indifferent ones.'' 

 Thisisallverywell fromamereexhibitor'sstandpoint : 

 butwhat would the decorators, or "Wild Rose's "sweet- 

 heart, sister, wife, or artistic friends, or the true lover 

 of Art or Nature say to it ? Why, that the sentence 

 begs the whole question, and the verdict given in 



favour of such Roses has no solid foundation what- 

 ever. I challenge him to test his single blooms 

 against clusters among all his fair sisters, and 

 chronicle the results. These I am confident will 

 suffice to put an end to the picking or pinching out 

 of. side buds, unless for exhibition ; and even for 

 exhibition such buds should have a place and score 

 a point. There used to be a very wholesome rule in 

 not a few Rose shows, to the effect that the Roses 

 should be shown as far as possible with buds and 

 foliage on a single stem. The National Rose Society 

 might render important service alike to Nature and 

 Art by reviving and enforcing such a rule. " Wild 

 Rose " is doubtless familiar with the following verse 

 from Leigh Hunt : — 



" We are blushing Roses, 

 Bending with our fulness, 

 'Midst our close-cupped sister buds, 

 Wanning the green coolness." 



But what lover of Nature or of Art on reading this 

 verse is not as much or more attracted by the close- 

 capped sister buds as the full-bloomed blushing Roses ? 

 Nature furnishes us with both, both together, both 

 in contrast, and it seems alike unnatural and in- 

 artistic to proceed with stick and toothpick to deprive 

 ourselves of that rich, many-sided, many-formed, 

 multi-coloured harvest of grace and beauty that 

 Nature has laid up for our enjoyment in her rich 

 prodigality of Rose buds. And then what a charm- 

 ing procession of blossom the buds provide for us ! 

 It is little wonder that we hear more complaints 

 every year of the shortness of the Rose season. 

 The Roses are forced with sticks and toothpicks to 

 bloom all abreast, and those side buds that would 

 yield the last Roses of the season, if not of the 

 summer, are ruthlessly destroyed. 



While writing thus strongly in defence of the close- 

 capped sister buds I should like also to utter a 

 protest against the wholesale slaughtering of Rose 

 blooms now so prevalent in so many gardens. Roses, 

 trees and bushes, are so cleared of bloom that, like 

 children's pictures they almost need labelling " This 

 is a Rose," for the information of the uninitiated. 

 But, just as no Rose can ever look its best without 

 few or many of its close-capped sister buds, so 

 every Rose is seen to most advantage on its parent 

 branch, forming part of its natural bunch or cluster. 

 For, as Gerrard Lewis sweetly sings : — 



" A gathered flower is but a fading thing, 



Like beauty seen in death ; 

 Though bright as ever is its colouring, 



And odorous its breath. 

 Then leave the Rose upon its parent stem, 



Where other Roses be : 

 'Twill live perchance long summer days with them — 



A few short hours with thee." 



EARLY SUMMER EXHIBITIONS. 



Whilst plants grown under glass are little affected 

 by external temperature or fluctuations of weather, 

 and may be relied upon generally to be up to the 

 mark at required periods, external vegetation is less 

 readily responsive, and a very low temperature, with 

 gloomy skies, heavy downpours of rain, and cold 

 winds, does not help to produce that condition of 

 maturity essential in exhibition products. 



Vegetables, especially, are late in every way, with 

 at present little prospect of their being pushed along 

 by any access of warmth ; indeed, those gloomy 

 weather-prophets who are so ready to predict ill, 

 and asserted that a north-east wind would prevail all 

 the summer, seem to be in expectation of justifica- 

 tion for their unpleasant prognostics. The natural 

 product of the weather which, so far, has marked the 

 earlier part of the summer, has been found in coarse 

 growth, without any corresponding cropping pro- 

 ducts. Ordinary garden vegetation has assumed an 

 almost tropical form, so abundant have .been the 

 rains ; and with soil so full of manure as gardens 

 usually are, no wonder that Peas, Beans, Potatos, 

 &c , are running wild in growth, whilst the pod and 

 tuber production is indefinite. 



