Kovember 3, 1888.] 



TBE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



501 



and can be counted and valued, and their condition 

 indicates how they have been manured and other- 

 wise treated. In some parts of Italy it is the prac- 

 tice to make an inventory of all the trees on a hold- 

 ing when the tenant enters, describing the number 

 of trees of each kind in each enclosure, indicating 

 the condition of the whole in general, if not of each, 

 and valuing them. When the tenant quits, a similar 

 inventory is made, and he is entitled to receive, or 

 required to pay, any difference in the two valuations, 

 according to whether he has caused appreciation or 

 deterioration during his tenancy. Whether or not 

 any allowance is made for natural improvement on 

 the one hand, or deterioration similar to the reason- 

 able " wear and tear " in a house, on the other, I 

 cannot say. Perhaps some such plan could be 

 adopted in this country. 



The simplest reform, however — and I believe that 

 fruit growers and farmers can get it if they will but 

 act together — would be that of striking out the 

 stipulation in the Agricultural Holdings Act which 

 requires the landlord's consent to entitle the tenant 

 to compensation for planting fruit trees, and for 

 other permanent improvements. But as I have 

 always been a friend — an unappreciated friend — to 

 landlords, I must state one objection to this proposal. 

 It would be hard to come down upon a poor, embar- 

 rassed landlord, or upon one fairly well-to-do, but 

 only a tenant for life, for £20 an acre or more on 

 100 or 200 acres, in the form of compensation to an 

 outgoing tenant. Therefore, it seems to me that if 

 the tenant is to be entitled to compensation for 

 costly improvements made without the landlord's 

 consent, the latter should have the option of pre- 

 senting the right of free sale to the former. Or, 

 perhaps, as landlords have always opposed free sale, 

 it will be but a fitting lesson to them to make the 

 amendment in the Agricultural Holdings Act just 

 suggested, and to leave them to sue for free sale 

 which, I fancy, under the altered circumstances, 

 many of them would very quickly demand. At any 

 rate, in one way or another, I contend, it is the right 

 and the duty of the public to insist that the law of 

 the land shall be so altered as to encourage, instead 

 of hindering, the greatest profitable development of 

 the resources of the soil. They should not recognise 

 the right of a man who is allowed to " hold an estate 

 in land " — the nearest approach to absolute owner- 

 ship recognised by the law of this country — to keep 

 it as a desert waste, or anything like a desert waste, 

 if it will pay for improvement, and there are capital- 

 ists able and willing to improve it. Or, to limit the 

 application of this principle of public right and duty 

 to the subject before us, I say that the people of this 

 country, desirons as they are to see planting increased, 

 should insist on their representatives in Parliament, 

 without unnecessary delay, so amending or adding to 

 the statutes as to afford to every cultivator of the 

 soil full security for the unexhausted value of any 

 improvement in the planting and culture of fruit 

 which he is able and willing to carry out. 



Plant Notes. 



OXALIS BOWEL 



There are a great nnmber of really pretty-flowered 

 Wood Sorrels, and Kew is the only place in England 

 where a representative collection of them may 

 be seen. One of the very best of them is that above 

 named. It is a free-growing plant, with trifoliate 

 leaves 4 inches across on stalks 8 inches long ; the 

 leaflets are broad obcordate, 2i inches across, bright 

 green, rather fleshy. The flowers are in umbels on 

 the end of drooping peduncles 1 foot long. There 

 are about a dozen flowers in each umbel, each having 

 a stalk li inch long ; the corolla is fully 1 inch 

 across, perfectly circular, and coloured deep rose with 

 a yellow eye. To grow this plant to perfection, it 

 should be planted in a border, as it is at Kew in the 

 succulent house, where several clumps of it have 

 been in flower for some weeks. Probably it would 

 do equally well in baskets. It is a plant which may 

 be recommended as a first-rate winter-flowering 

 greenhouse Oxalis. 



Begonia geranioides. 

 This has the reputation of being a small uninter- 

 esting plant, with white flowers, and a delicate 

 constitution, and we have never seen it grown as a 

 pot plant when it did not deserve that reputation ; 

 but when planted in a border in a warm, dry, sunny 

 greenhouse, it is a really charming Begonia, which is 

 saying a good deal in these days of Begonia wonders. 

 Two years ago about fifty tubers of B. geranioides 

 were imported direct from Natal to Kew. They 

 were planted in a border in a Succulent-house under 

 the conditions which have been so successful with 

 Streptocarpuses. The Begonias are in flower now. 

 They have kidney-shaped leaves, inches across, on 

 erect stalks 8 inches long. The flowers are on erect 

 leafy panicles a foot high, and each flower is 1{ inch 

 across, snow-white, with a small button-like bunch 

 of bright yellow stamens in the middle. Each plant 

 has quite a sheaf of blossom, and as every flower 

 faces upwards, the effect is charming. The female 

 flowers have live segments, and a large three-winged 

 white ovary. These plants have been in flower about 

 a month, and they are still very fine. 



Cassebeera triphylla. 

 This Fern has just been added to the cultivated 

 collection at Kew. It is quite distinct from any 

 other Fern known to me, and it is pretty enough to 

 be noted here. The fronds are 4 inches "high, erect ; 

 the stalks wiry and shining black, the blade trifo- 

 liate, each leaflet 1} inch long, and less than a quarter 

 of an inch wide, crenulate, deep shining green. The 

 sori are in close rows along the margin of the seg- 

 ments, on the underside. The genus is related to 

 Cheilanthes. The plant at Kew is a compact little 

 tuft of fronds, and it appears to thrive perfectly 

 in a dry, sunny greenhouse. It is a native of Brazil. 

 W, Watson. 



New or Noteworthy Plants. 



CYPKIPEDIUM OZNANTHUM, JOSEPHINE 

 JOLIBOIS X, hyb.gail. 



Tms comes very near to Cypripedium icnanthum 

 superbum. But its flower is larger, and the stami- 

 node is quite distinct. The leaf at hand is quite 

 of Harrisianum shape and is covered with rather 

 obscure, dark, interrupted, broken bars. The bract 

 is much shorter than the hairy, green, india-purple 

 ribbed ovary, green with indian-purple lines and 

 freckles. The dorsal sepal is very broad, adorned 

 with an upper white, broad margin, with numerous 

 india-purple veins on the light green, inferior part, 

 and the veins are covered with darker spots of the 

 same colour, which give a moniliform appearance. 

 Petals nearly ciliate, ligulate acute, of a pallid ochre 

 ground colour, greenish at the base, where there are 

 numerous roundish dark, india-purple spots. The 

 whole traversed by ten dark, purplish-brown nerves 

 with some short, transverse, oblique bars in the ante- 

 rior part running from one longitudinal nerve to the 

 next. Dorsal sepal narrow, shorter than the lip, with 

 india-purple nerves outside on the lightest greenish 

 ground, quite covered with dense short purple hairs, 

 while inside these are but a few short lines of India- 

 purple freckles, not surpassing the base. The lip is 

 that of Cypripedium Harrisianum, very pallid, having 

 much olive colour underneath, some light brownish - 

 purple above, and an ochre-coloured margin around 

 the mouth. The involved margins of the stalk have 

 numerous light, round spots ; similar ones are to be 

 seen in the interior, covered with very numerous dark 

 hairs. The staminode is yellow, finally light-red- 

 dish, rather retuse in front, with two large lateral 

 lobes and a very small apiculus in the sinus of both. 



Mr. R. Measures, of The Woodlands, Streatham, 

 the facile princeps of Cypripedists, has raised this 

 from Cypripediuni Harrisianum and C. insigne 

 Chantini. 



There can be no doubt if we knew how near all 

 these varieties of Cypripedium insigne stand one to 

 another, that those children of insigne and Harris- 

 ianum should be kept under the common name of 

 C. ccnanthum X . I have good reason to believe that 

 this is also the view of Mr. R. Measures. Allusion 

 is made to a similar plant in the Journal do la Sociiti 



Xationale d' Horticulture do France, 3rd series, ix.. May, 

 18SS, p. 20t>. Mons. M. K. Jolibois, jardiuier en 

 chef au Luxembourg, crossed C. Harrisianum and C. 

 insigne Chantini in 1882, and the first flower opened, 

 after a very long period in bud, on April 15, 1888. 

 It was dedicated to Madame Josephine Jolibois, the 

 mother of Mons. Jolibois. I suppose it must be the 

 same, though there is no full description given. 

 Monsieur K. Jolibois states, that some plants have 

 simply green leaves, while others show "les feuilles 

 maculees,'' which, no doubt, refers to the darker 

 broken bars, above-mentioned. H. G. Echh. f. 



Cvpripedium Elliottianum, n. sp. 

 This glorious new introduction of Messrs. Sander 

 & Co.'s, from the Philippines is now in bloom at the 

 St. Albans Nursery. The plant is of noble habit, 

 resembling C Stonei ; leaves bright green, from 

 1 foot to 15 inches long, and li to 2 inches broad ; 

 the older stout purple-dotted scape, over 1 foot in 

 height, bore evidence of the presence of five flowers, 

 but on that in bloom only two. The bracts are spatha- 

 ceous, and very showy, from 1 — IV inch long, whitish, 

 with narrow chocolate lines. The 2-inch long 

 ovaries bear handsome flowers, which call to mind 

 the beautiful C. Rothschildianum and C. pr.-cstans, 

 from both of which, however, it is widely distin- 

 guished. The dorsal sepal is IV inch wide and 2\ 

 long, pointed, ivory-white, with fifteen dark crimson 

 lines of various lengths ; the lower sepals are simi- 

 lar, but smaller. The lip is nearly like that of C. 

 Stonei in colour and shape, and has the same fold on 

 the under side ; ivory-white, delicately veined and 

 tinted rose. The petals are also white, spotted in the 

 upper portion with crimson blotches, which ruu into 

 three or four narrow lines to the points, the upper 

 portions being wavy and ciliated, much as in C. 

 Sanderianum. The staminode (unless abnormal) is 

 narrow and curved under, as in C. Rothschildianum. 

 Altogether it is a very beautiful species, which seems 

 to embody the good features of most of its section. 

 James O'Brien. 



The Gents Polyctcnis. 



This is a highly curious little genus of Orchids, 

 occasionally met with in cultivation, though perhaps 

 less commonly at the present time than some years 

 ago, when Gongoras, Catasetums, Cycnoches, and 

 other allied genera, were more in fashion. The rare 

 P. lepida is just now flowering in the Kew collection, 

 thus furnishing a convenient opportunity for giving 

 a brief account of the known species of the genus. 

 Polycycnis was described in 1855 by Professor 

 Reichenbach (Bonplandia, iii., p. 218), the name 

 being derived from polys, many, and kyknos, a swan, 

 in allusion to the numerous flowers on the raceme, 

 each having a slender, gracefully curved column, like 

 the neck of a swan ; in fact, the genus is very closely 

 allied to Cycnoches, the swans-neck Orchids, 

 though at present it has not been known to play 

 such singular freaks as producing sometimes one 

 kind of flowers, and at other times totally differently 

 ones, occasionally varying the proceedings by deve- 

 loping both kinds of flowers at once. One may per- 

 haps say that it bears the same relation to Cycnoches 

 thatMormodes does to Catasetum, forMormodes only 

 produces one kind of flowers, while its more sportive 

 relation has no fewer than three kinds, and more than 

 once accomplished the seemingly impossible feat 

 of presenting to Dr. Lindley flowers of two different 

 genera on the same inflorescence — a freak which 

 that accomplished botanist found not a little per- 

 plexing. However, we are aware of these tricks at 

 the present day, and shall, perhaps, learn more of 

 the history of this strange genus when some one will 

 take in hand the cultivation of as many of the 

 species as can be got together. Some of the species 

 are certainly handsome, all of them grotesque, and 

 few genera are more imperfectly known. But to 

 return to our subject. Polycycnis has more of the 

 general appearance of Gongora than of any other 

 genus, though its free upper sepal readily dis- 

 tinguishes it ; for in Gongora the upper sepal and 

 column are united for some distance, one appealing 



