16 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[July 7, 1888. 



in checking the Potato disease should it reappear. 

 As the fungus is, to a great extent, concealed within 

 the tissues of the tuber, haulm, or leaf, no application 

 of this sort could be expected to kill the fungus 

 outright; but its spread and diffusion might be 

 checked as it is in the case of the Vine. To those 

 who might raise an objection as to the possible 

 injurious effect of the copper on human beings, it 

 may be said that in the case of the Vine no poison- 

 ous properties have been noted in the Grape juice, 

 which contains infinitessimally small proportions, or 

 none at all, of copper. In the case of the Potato 

 there would be no fear of poisoning from the tubers, 

 and if it be said that chickens or pigs might receive 

 injury from eating the haulm, it may be urged in 

 reply that these animals should under no circum- 

 stances whatever be allowed to eat diseased haulm, 

 and thus propagate the disease. 



Royal Botanic Society.— Last Wednesday 



evening the annual Evening Fete of this Society 

 passed off successfully ; as, although the weather had 

 been threatening and showery during the day, the 

 evening was quite fine. About 10,000 visitors 

 attended, and Messrs. L. D. Berry & Son's illumi- 

 nations were as satisfactory as usual. Exhibits of 

 table decorations were varied and numerous, and 

 many fine bouquets, and arrangements of flowers 

 for personal adornment, attracted much notice. Mr. 

 W. Paul, Waltham Cross, sent a fine bank of cut 

 and pot Roses, and show Pelargoniums came from 

 Mr. C. Turner, Slough. Messrs. J. Waterer & 

 Sons' Rhododendrons made a fine display ; and Mrs. 

 Southam showed specimens of her flowers dried in 

 their natural colours. 



The Italian Exhibition.— It is intended to 



hold periodical flower shows at this Exhibition. 

 The first of these shows was held on Monday last, 

 when a large gathering of plants and flowers was 

 exhibited. Messrs. Kelway, of Langport, had a great 

 show of Prconies, Delphiniums, Gaillardias, and 

 Amaryllis, which were very attractive. Messrs. 

 Cannell, Swanley, occupied a large space 

 with double and single Begonias. The English 

 Irises and Pseonies from Mr. Walker, Whitton, 

 won many admirers. A large gathering of cut 

 flowers, including most hardy flowers now in season, 

 came from Messrs. Barr, Covent Garden ; while 

 Messrs. Carter, High Holborn, had a large group 

 of single and double Petunias in pots intermixed 

 with ornamental grasses, the whole making a very 

 attractive display. 



Flowering of Ostrowskia magnifica.— 



This new hardy plant is in flower for the first time, 

 we believe, in England, at Messrs. Veitch's nursery 

 at Coombe Wood. The plants are 3 feet high, with 

 whorls of leaves on erect stems ; flowers 3 inches 

 across, in form shallow, bell-shaped ; colour white, 

 flushed with purple — very beautiful. It will be 

 shown at the Royal Horticultural Society's meeting 

 next Tuesday. 



"Farm, Field, and Fireside."— Under this 



alliterative title a low-priced agricultural journal is 

 now published, and of which the second volume is 

 before us. It contains a vast amount of information 

 condensed into paragraphs, so much so, that many 

 more letters of the alphabet than the three F's would 

 be needed to furnish titles for the headings, Garden- 

 ing, Housekeeping, Health, for instance. As is cus- 

 tomary in similar publications, much of the paper is 

 furnished by the readers themselves in the form of 

 answers to questions. 



ENKIANTHUS HIMALAICUS.— A loosely-branched 

 Ericaceous shrub, with leaves and flowers aggregated 

 at the ends of the branches. The mode of growth 

 is peculiar, the branches being subjected to alternate 

 arrests and accessions of growth, the consequence of 

 which is that on the same branch there are relatively 

 long intervals destitute of leaves, and these naked 

 spaces are followed by short " spurs," bearing leaves 

 and flowers closely crowded. The leaves are some- 



what less than 1 inch in length, somewhat more than 

 a quarter of an inch in breadth, with a short red 

 petiole ; blades membranous, oblong-lanceolate, 

 green above, paler beneath, with a red midrib and a 

 few scattered strigose hairs, margins with short 

 recurved teeth. The flower-stalks are thread-like, 

 recurved, rather shorter than the leaves, and densely 

 covered with shaggy hairs. The flowers are bell- 

 shaped, about the size and form of those of the Lily 

 of the Valley, but dull red and streaked. The 

 ten anthers are prolonged into long tails. The 

 shrub is a native of the Eastern Himalayas, at heights 

 of from 8000 — 11,000 feet, is figured in the Botanical 

 Magazine, t. 6460, and described by C. B. Clarke in 

 Hooker's Flora of British India, vol. iii. (1882), p. 

 461. We have to thank the Curator of the Royal 

 Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, for the opportunity of 

 examining the plant. 



ANTWERP. — It has. been decided to inaugurate 

 next year, in this city, an International Exhibition of 

 Botanical Geography. M. de Bosschere, who took 

 so active a part in the last Antwerp Exhibition, is 

 the moving spirit in this case also, and is proceeding 

 on the lines of M. Hansen, of Copenhagen, who some 

 years since carried out a similar Exhibition with 

 success. 



CERTIFICATES. — There exists at some of the 

 foreign horticultural societies a practice of awarding 

 certificates at one meeting and of rescinding, or 

 confirming, and afterwards presenting them to the 

 recipient at another. This allows of time for en- 

 quiry in doubtful cases. Were a similar opportunity 

 for reflection and examination allowed some question- 

 able awards might be prevented at the Floral 

 Committee. 



" LIFE LORE." — This is the name of a newmonthly 

 periodical devoted to natural history, and published 

 by W. Mawer, 4, Essex Street, Strand, London. 

 The articles are interesting, if not all very novel, and 

 the magazine is well printed and appropriately illus- 

 trated. 



A Large Carnation.— Mr. Scamjiel, gardener 

 to Mr. H. M. Holdsworth, Wilton, states that he 

 has a Carnation (Souvenir de la Malmaison) which 

 has several unusually fine blooms, one measuring 

 6 inches in diameter and 1 foot 6 inches in circum- 

 ference, perfectly shaped. The plant was raised 

 from a cutting two years since. 



OLD FRIENDS. — Messrs. Laing & Mather send 

 us from Kelso good specimens of the double white 

 Rocket (Hesperismatronalis), a showy perennial not 

 so much grown as it should be ; and of the double 

 yellow Rocket (Barbarea vulgaris), also an effective 

 border plant, the flowers of which retain their beauty 

 for a long period. 



Low Temperature. — Mr. W. H. Divers, 

 Ketton Hall, Stamford informs us, that on the 

 morning of Sunday, July 1, the minimum thermo- 

 meter on the grass at Ketton registered 34°, and the 

 minimum in a Stevenson screen close by it was 40° ; 

 but on June 25 and 26 a maximum of Sl° and 84° 

 was registered on each thermometers respectively. 



BERLIN NOTES. 



The florist shops, now that the reign of the Lily of 

 the Valley has come to an end, have ranged them- 

 selves under the sign of the Rose, and every kind of 

 Rose is in abundance, and only here and there Orchid 

 flowers, but which are becoming more and more the 

 favourites in Germany and will in a few years be de- 

 cidedly fashionable. It may be of interest to 

 our readers to know the quantity of Lily of 

 the Valley employed in Berlin in the course of the 

 past season. As is well known, the forcing of Lily of 

 the Valley for Berlin and neighbourhood is a specialty, 

 numbers of growers are to be met with who have land 

 under this crop to the extent of Q\ hectares [over 14 

 acres] ; hut the quantities raised here by no means 

 equal the demand of the metropolis, and waggonloads 

 arrive almost daily, chiefly from Silesia, each of which 



on an average contains 900,000 to 1,000,000 flower- 

 spikes. The total quantity of Lily of the Valley will 

 not be fixed too high at 25,000,000 to 30,000,000. The 

 flowers are sold in bunches of ten at 15 pfennigen, as 

 the lowest price ; so that at the least 30,000 marks are 

 spent on these flowers in the season. If we consider 

 that the retail price of a Lily bouquet is 50 to 75 

 pfennigen, then the turnover must equal a sum of from 

 40,000 to 45,000 marks. 



Manured Flower-pots. 



At the meeting on June 28 last of the Verein zur 

 Beforderung des Gartenbaues some pots were shown 

 made from the best kind of clay which had been 

 mixed with from 13 to 15 per cent, of bone-meal, 

 and then formed and burnt. After being taken from 

 the kiln the pots were dipped in a bath containing 

 3 per cent, of sulphuric acid and ammoniacal potash, 

 which was readily absorbed, and they were then 

 allowed to dry. It was decided, at the request of 

 the exhibitor," to test the value of the invention. Our 

 Berlin Com 



DISEASE OF GARDEN HELLE- 

 BORES : PERONOSPORA FICARI^E, Tul. 



For two seasons I have been aware of a serious 

 and destructive disease amongst garden Hellebores ; 

 last season my materials were too uncertain for pub- 

 lication — this year, however, the data have been 

 abundant. Very early in the spring Mr. F. W. Bur- 

 bidge sent me badly diseased examples from Dublin, 

 with particulars as full as it was then possible to 

 furnish. Since that time various correspondents 

 have sent examples, and complained of the total loss 

 of their garden Hellebores. A note from Mr. Bur- 

 bidge well explains all the cases. Mr. Burbidge 

 writes from Dublin : — " The Hellebore disease seems 

 confined in this neighbourhood to Helleborus niger 

 (Christmas Rose), and its garden forms or varie- 

 ties. H. niger maximus ( = H. altifolius of gardens, 

 not H. altifolius of Heyne) seems especially to suffer 

 from its attacks, although perhaps the most robust 

 and vigorous member of the whole group. So far as 

 my observations go, the petioles' first become 

 affected ; a black-coloured spot or blotch appears 

 and spreads, and encircles the leaf-stalk, after which 

 the blackened portion deliquesces, and you see the 

 leaf lying withered on the ground. Sometimes, but 

 more rarely, the disease extends to the crown or 

 rootstock of the plant, and the plant rots as a 

 blackened, putrid mass. Some affected plants were 

 taken up and washed clean, the affected parts being 

 carefully cut away. When the plants were replanted 

 in fresh soil they recovered, after a top-dressing of 

 potash and carbon in the simple shape of wood- 

 ashes from a rubbish-fire. I have a notion, but no 

 proof, that the attack is brought about by the too 

 liberal use of crude farmyard manure." I was at 

 first unfortunately supplied with too much of the 

 deliquesced material, too much dirt, and too much 

 of the " blackened, putrid mass," and too little 

 of the less affected material. By request, and 

 after I had detected abundant resting-spores 

 of a Peronospora in the deliquescent petioles 

 and leaves, better material was supplied. It is, 

 perhaps, needless to say that the blackness and 

 putrescence is an after result of the disease — a 

 late symptom after the marauder itself has vanished. 

 With this knowledge I secured examples only 

 slightly affected, and placed them in a warm shady 

 place in my garden, with the result that the whole 

 material became speedily covered with a white and at 

 length grey mould, which burst through the stomata 

 and spread over the leaves. The growth was only 

 slight on the petioles, and on the upper surfaces 

 of the leaves. The grey mould was most pro- 

 fuse on the back of the leaves, and gave the 

 entire under , surface an appearance comparable 

 with dirty brown-grey flannel. The growth was 

 rapid ; it spread like wild-fire, and in a day or 

 two reduced the whole material to a black putrid 

 mass. On placing some of the grey mould under 

 the microscope it proved to be a very large and 

 handsome much-branched Peronospora, with abun- 



