THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



263 



with age to deep green ; the fructification also is 

 very pretty, the coverings of the spore-cases having 

 a bright rosy tint. Although a deciduous species, it 

 is well worthy of a place in every collection, and is a 

 very useful decorative Fern for summer use. 



L. decomposita is another very pretty species, with 

 broad finely-cut fronds. 



L. Standishii, L. flabella, L. opaca, L. atrata, and 

 L. Sieboldii, are all useful greenhouse Ferns. 

 I should not omit the prettily tasselled L. 

 Eichardsii multifida, which should be grown in a 

 stove temperature ; and L. cristata, a very pretty 

 hardy form, very regularly tasselled at the extremities 

 of the side-pinnoe, and the fronds terminating with a 

 heavier crest. Pterin. 



Plant Notes, 



IRIS DICHOTOMA. 

 This curious species is now flowering in the her- 

 baceous grounds at Kew, and though not in any way 

 to be compared with the numerous garden varieties 

 in cultivation now, it is a very remarkable plant, 

 distinct from any other Iris grown, both in habit and 

 flowers. It is figured in the Botanical Register, t. 

 246, Sweet's Brit. Fl. Garden, t. 96, and shortly 

 since in the Bot. Mag. The figure in the latter 

 work gives the flowers as bright purple, and the 

 description says rather small. In the plane flower- 

 ing at Kew the standards are pale satiny-white, with 

 j ust a trace of purple, chequered with brown spots or 

 bars towards the base ; the falls are much the same, 

 with the exception of a few scattered purple spots, 

 densely purple spotted or barred from half their 

 length to the base. The flowers are over 2 inches 

 in diameter, from fifty to seventy on each plant, and 

 rarely more than two or three open at a time, and 

 that always towards evening. It has a very much 

 branched habit, throwing flowering branches from 

 all the upper leaves, and these again branched or 

 forked. It seems to have been long in cultivation, 

 but is apparently rare, and probably not more than a 

 biennial. The Kew plants were raised from seed 

 kept in a cold frame during winter. It is not hardy 

 in the open air. D. 



Ibis Robinsonii. 

 A plant of Iris (or Morea) Robinsonii, given to 

 T. A. S. Dorrien Smith, Esq., by H. J. Elwes, Esq , 

 some six years ago, is now in flower in these gardens. 

 It is a native of Lord Howe's Island, and Mr. Elwes 

 says that it has never flowered in Europe before. It 

 also flowered here in 1887. The plant is in vigorous 

 health, the flower-spike about 5 feet in height, and 

 there have been some sixty flowers on it, which are 

 of a large size, and white. The plant is growing in 

 a border only, a few feet from the edge of the lake. 

 G. D. Va/laiKe, Tresco Abbey Gardens, Isles of Stilly 

 Sept. 3. 



Lagerstrcemia indica. 

 According to some writers this is said to be one of 

 the most beautiful of flowering plants in the gardens 

 of India. However this may be, we can say that it is 

 one of the handsomest of plants to be found now in 

 bloom under glass, and it certainly deserves a place 

 in every garden where room can be provided for its 

 accomodation. The Bot. Mag. (t. 405), says of it :— 

 " The flowers are produced in panicles or trusses at 

 the end of young shoots of the current year, from 3 

 to 8.J- inches long, and from 6 inches at the base, to 

 3 inches in diameter. Upon the first opening of the 

 flower it is seen to greatest advantage as the glitter- 

 ing golden-yellow of the stamens makes a dazzling 

 contrast with the richly coloured petals, which are 

 beautifully formed, the limb being gracefully waved 

 and curled, and connected to the inside of the segment 

 of the calyx by a longish narrow claw." Its height is 

 about 10 feet, and it thrives in a house where the 

 temperature never reaches lower than 40° to 45°. It 

 can be grown into good specimens by pot culture, but 

 is seen more to perfection when planted out in a 

 well drained situation, the compost being made up 



of strong fibrous loam with some peat and sand 

 mixed with it. In the beginning of the year it should 

 be pruned in rather closely. It may be readily pro- 

 pagated from the young growths if these are taken 

 off when an inch or two long. Our plants always 

 receive plenty of water at the roots, no attempt 

 being made to dry them off; the main thing is to 

 keep the temperature low enough so as not to excite 

 them into growth during the winter months. The 

 genus is not a large one, and only a couple or so of 

 species are in cultivation. There is a white form, L. 

 indica alba, which is well worth cultivating. L. flos- 

 regina has been termed one of the most beautiful of 

 flowering plants in the world. This attains the 

 height of from 50 to 60 feet. W. Harrow, Botanic 

 Garden, Cambridge. 



The Bulb Garden, 



LIFTING AND STORING NARCISSUS BULBS 



Writing in these pages a week or two ago, Mr. 

 James Walker stated that drying, or, rather, cleaning 

 and storing, Narcissus bulbs was an advantage to 

 them, adding that such bulbs would be found to have 

 made stronger and deeper roots in October than 

 those of other bulbs not so cleaned and dried. Now, 

 on p. 189 we have Mr. Dod's experience, that dried 

 bulbs of N. Bernardii are with him soft and rotten, 

 or likely to become so when replanted, while bulbs 

 of the same kind left in the soil are perfectly sound 

 and firmly rooted. I have always looked on the 

 storing of Daffodil roots as a necessary evil on the 

 part of nurserymen and professional bulb growers, 

 but one which the amateur would do well to avoid. 

 Mr. Walker is such a noted cultivator of these 

 flowers, and so honest and high-minded in his 

 public statements, that his advice is apt to be 

 followed — longo intcrvallo — by many ; and I note that 

 " B. D." (p. 180), in writing on "The Florist's 

 Tulip," also follows Mr. Walker in stating that " the 

 bulb which has been kept cool and dry strikes root 

 with far greater force at its natural time for 

 rooting, which is about the month of September." 

 And yet we are told that November 9 is the tradi- 

 tional time for planting Tulips. But even supposing 

 that the dried bulbs of Narcissi (or of Tulips, as in 

 " R. D,'s " case) do "strike root with greater force," 

 I fail to grasp that fact alone as a gain in any way. 

 I have never yet heard a physiologist assert that a 

 man or an animal is the better for being deprived of 

 their food past the natural limits of meal-times, 

 even although the tendency generally is to make 

 them eat more " forcibly " in the natural anxiety to 

 make up for lost time. The fact is, that neither 

 animals nor plants are permanently benefited by 

 being starved when they ought to be eating in the 

 one case, or rooting and growing in the other. 



The only real point of difference in Narcissus 

 culture between myself and Mr. Walker is this 

 question of drying, cleaning, and storing the bulbs. 

 It may be that soil and climate cause me to hold to 

 one view, and he to the other. The soil I should 

 select in which to grow the bulk of Daffodils to per- 

 fection would be " a meadow to which manure of any 

 kind had been a foreigner for many years," such as 

 Mr. E. Jenkins describes at p. 189. On such a soil 

 bulbs can scarcely require much cleaning, I should 

 say, after being dug in dry weather in July or 

 August. 



I see Mr. Jenkins approves, and, as I think, 

 rightly, if any be used, of cow manure. Cow manure 

 is largely used in the light deep sandy soils in Hol- 

 land, and yet, if I am not mistaken, Messrs. Roozen 

 & Son in their newly published book on the Culti- 

 vation of Bulbs, make a point of " not cow manure " 

 in their note on the culture of Narcissus. If this is 

 so, I should like to ask those noted growers why they 

 place a ban on cow manure, as opposed to other 

 stimulants? 



I at once admit that an increase of size and weight 

 is the result of using manure in Narcissus culture, 

 but at the same time I should be very sorry to take 



it for granted that large and heavy bulbs as so pro- 

 duced were better, all things considered, than are 

 equally large and heavy bulbs producible on deep, 

 rich meadow loams, over gravel (i.e., well drained) 

 and not manured. Indeed, I will go further, and if 

 needs be, prove by examples that the largest of 

 manured Narcissus roots or bulbs do not necessarily 

 flower better than medium-sized bulbs grown with- 

 out manure on a suitable soil. That manured roots 

 are very prone to disease is a well-known fact. The 

 finest flowers of N. Horsfieldii, N. Sir Watkin, N. 

 Emperor, and many other kinds grown here are, I 

 find, not the produce of the very large and heavy 

 " mother or breeder roots," but of medium-sized, 

 solid, and well-ripened globular bulbs before they 

 reach or attain to the breeder stage. 



The present season has been so constantly wet 

 and sunless that the bulbs sent out new roots before 

 the leaves had entirely died away, and amateurs 

 will, I think, be wise in deferring the lifting the bulk 

 of their Daffodils until next season. As to deep or 

 shallow planting much must depend on the subsoil 

 below. On well drained, gravelly sub-strata, deep 

 planting, and on soils water-logged, or moist below, 

 shallow planting would be most likely to succeed. 

 In the latter cases, raised beds with ample drainage 

 {i.e., deep alleys) between them, would be an advan- 

 tage. There cannot possibly be any question as to 

 the benefit attending annual replanting in ordinary 

 seasons on all soils where leaves and roots die off 

 simultaneously. The new roots strike out into fresh 

 soil, and obtain a good form, level quality, and a 

 vigour not attainable in any other way. It is 

 the Dutch plan, and is, as I think, the plan 

 for nursery or trade growers in England, and 

 the amateur should at once adopt it ill 

 the case of any tender varieties, such as N 

 pallidus prsecox, N. noschatus, of the Pyrenees, 

 N. varieformis, or others that do not succeed on the 

 replanting every two or three years system. I have 

 always protested against the drying or storing of 

 Daffodil roots in any shape or form. To the trade 

 it is a necessary evil, and even they as growers are 

 now waking up to the fact that early-planted 

 Narcissi are the best. It cannot be too strongly or 

 earnestly enforced that the present is the time to 

 plant Daffodil roots, or to pot them for indoor 

 culture, and every bulb dried and tossed about in 

 shed or shop until November or even later cannot 

 be expected to flower anything like so strongly or so 

 well as they will if planted now. Amateurs fond of 

 Daffodils should insist on August, or at the very 

 latest, September delivery. 



There is a little point in Mr. Dod's note at p. 189 

 which is rather puzzling to me. It is there stated, 

 "As long as the soil is wet the root-action remairs 

 active, even after the leaves are quite dead, and 

 enables the bulb to get rid of its superfluous moisture 

 into the soil. It may be so, but after the leaves ara 

 dead, I fail to see how evaporation or transpiration 

 can take place through the bulb tunics when they 

 are surrounded by wet soil. My notion is that they 

 do not attract any superfluous moisture after the 

 leaves are withered and fallen. All superfluous 

 moisture, if any, imbibed by the roots before the 

 leaves decay is by them (the leaves) drawn off and 

 returned to the atmosphere in the usual course of 

 transpiration. It is this continued labour being 

 forced upon them (owing to a prolonged season of 

 rain and little sunshine) which has led to the leaves 

 being now, in many cases, as fresh and as green as 

 in April, when last year they had all died clean away 

 by June. 



To sum up, my advice to amateurs is as follows : — 

 Plant early, i.e., in August if possible, but not later 

 than September. On dry sandy, or even on deep 

 loamy soils, if well drained, plant deeply, say 6— *9, 

 or, on very light soils, 12 inches deep. Use no 

 manures, but replant on fresh land a year or two 

 after it has been manured for other crops. Replant 

 a third of the entire stock every year, just as the 

 leaves die away. On strong, damp soils plant 

 shallow, 2 — 3 — 4 inches deep only. On wet subsoils 

 plant on raised beds well drained below, planting 



