670 



THE GABDENEBS' CHBONICLE. 



[Decembeb 8, 1888. 



through a collecting box at the recent exhibition of 

 Chrysanthemums at Twickenham ; Mr. G. Bishop 

 the sum of £3 6s., similarly collected at the Ted- 

 dington Crysanthemum show ; Mr. G. W. Cummins 

 the sum of 14s. Qd. from the collecting box at The 

 Grange Gardens, Wellington, and 6s. Id. obtained at 

 the local Chrysanthemum show ; Mr. Garnett, St. 

 John's Gardens, Wakefield, the sum of £3, as a 

 donation from the funds of the Yorkshire Associa- 

 tion of Horticulturists ; Mr. R. Scott, Moorfields, 

 Manningham, the sum of £1 10s. 6d, the proceeds 

 of a box at the exhibition of the Bradford Chrysan- 

 themum Society ; Mr. Wooderson, Bexley Heath, 

 the sum of 1 guinea, from the Chrysanthemum Com- 

 mittee of Bexley; and Mr. II. J. Clayton, The Gar- 

 dens, Grimston Park, Tadcaster, wrote stating that 

 the committee of the York Floral Gala had voted 

 the sum of £5 to the Orphan Fund. It was thought 

 that if the gardening Press would give publicity to 

 contributions of this nature, others might be 

 induced to exert themselves in the same direc- 

 tion. A letter was read from Mr. Owen Thomas, 

 The Gardens, Chatsworth, stating, in reference to 

 the recent entertainment proposed in aid of the Fund 

 by the gardeners of the Chesterfield district, that it 

 proved a great success, 700 to 800 persons having 

 been present, and the decorations made with autumn 

 foliage and berries were unique, and greatly appre- 

 ciated by the company. Mr. Drummond, nursery- 

 man, Stirling, local secretary for that district, wrote 

 expressing his regret that his efforts to obtain sub- 

 scriptions from gardeners in Scotland had met with 

 so little success, they appearing to think that the 

 Institution is essentially an English one, and not 

 intended for the Scotch. The committee regretted 

 that this prejudice existed, but desired it to be 

 widely known they were desirous of receiving appli- 

 cations from the friends of necessitous orphan 

 children from every part of Great Britain and 

 Ireland. Another gross of collecting boxes was 

 ordered at a cost of £8 10s., the Secretary reporting 

 that the sum of £15 18s. had been obtained through 

 this means. A. hearty vote of thanks was passed to 

 Messrs. Bates, Bishop, Cummins, Garnett, and Scott 

 for the contributions received through their agency. 

 The proposal to hold another Covent Garden 

 fete on behalf of the Fund was mentioned, but 

 deferred for further consideration. A cordial vote 

 of thanks to the chairman concluded the proceedings. 

 The letter read from Mr. Drummond, seedsman, of 

 Stirling, referring to the difficulty he has experienced 

 in obtaining contributions to the fund from Scotch 

 gardeners, owing to the prejudice which exists 

 against the fund on account of its being considered 

 an essentially English institution, conveys an im- 

 pression that is altogether incorrect. It will be 

 remembered that the committee announced in all the 

 leading gardening papers their intention to elect six 

 children upon the Fund, and applications were 

 invited in the most open manner. We are greatly 

 mistaken if it is not the earnest desire of the 

 committee to make their Fund a blessing in all parts 

 of the United Kingdom, however remote. An appli- 

 cation from the northernmost parts of Scotland will, 

 we are sure, be as favourably entertained upon its 

 merits as would be one from Middlesex. Let our 

 Scotch brethren put forth two or three candidates at 

 the next election, and so practically test whether the 

 feeling of exclusiveness really exists. Scotchmen 

 are to be found upon the committee. 



The National Chrysanthemum Society. 



— A meeting of the general committee took place at 

 Anderton's Hotel, Fleet Street, E.C., on the 3rd 

 inst., Mr. E. Sanderson, President, in the chair, 

 nearly the whole of the members of the committee 

 being present, including several representatives of 

 local societies. The minutes of the last meeting 

 having been read, the Hon. Secretary, Mr. William 

 Holmes, announced that the arrangements for the 

 annual dinner on the 13th had been made. A cordial 

 vote of thanks was passed to the members who 

 had acted as stewards of the November exhibition at 

 the Boyal Aquarium. Mr. C. H. Payne, the Foreign 

 Corresponding Hon. Secretary, announced that a 



growing interest in the Chrysanthemum on the Con- 

 tinent and the United States was shown in the appli- 

 cations he had received for catalogues, including some 

 from Barbadoes and Constantinople. He had also 

 received applications for membership from foreigners, 

 and suggested that Americana should be required to 

 pay an annual subscription of a dollar, and French 

 and Belgian members five francs each, to cover cost 

 of postage of documents, &c. Eventually Mr. Payne 

 was requested to prepare a scheme for foreign mem- 

 bership, and bring up the same at the next meeting 

 of the committee. The Society having offered for com- 

 petition among societies affiliated with it a Challenge 

 Trophy, to be in the custody of the President of the 

 society winning the same for the space of the year, 

 a sub-committee, consisting of Messrs. E. Sander- 

 son, R. Ballantine, and E. C. Jukes, was appointed 

 to procure a salver, at a cost not exceeding £15. A 

 letter was read suggesting that a Chrysanthemum 

 Conference should take place on the day of the 

 annual dinner. Eventually it was unanimously 

 resolved that it should take place at the 

 Royal Aquarium in connection with the winter 

 shows on January 9 and 10, and a sub- 

 committee, consisting of Messrs. C. H. Payne, L. 

 Castle, and G. Gordon, were appointed to make 

 arrangements for carrying out the same. The Hon. 

 Secretary announced in reference to a provincial 

 show in 1889, that he had received applications from 

 York, Leeds, Hull, Derby, and Brighton, in each case 

 a further application would be received, setting forth 

 the proposed terms upon which such an exhibition 

 could be held. The question of the proposed cele- 

 bration of the centenary of the importation of the 

 Chrysanthemum to Europe was postponed for the 

 consideration of the new committee to be appointed 

 in January next. Thirty-four new members were 

 elected, including two new Fellows; bringing the 

 total membership up to 630. The Hull and East 

 Riding Chrysanthemum Society was admitted into 

 affiliation. A vote of thanks to the Chairman closed 

 the proceedings. 



BROMELIACE/E. — We are pleased to announce 

 that Mr. J. G. Baker has in the press this winter a 

 Handbook of Bromeliacea, on the same plan as his 

 Handbooks of the Fern Allies and Amaryllidea;. 

 Upwards of 700 species are now known, which is 

 twice as many as Mr. Bentham estimated in 1883. 

 About 250 of them have been, at one time or 

 another, in cultivation, and of nearly all of these fine 

 coloured figures, life-size, are contained in the splen- 

 did collection which was made by the late Professor 

 Edward Morren, and after his death purchased by 

 the Bentham Trustees and presented to the Kew 

 library. The London herbaria contain specimens of 

 about half the known species. Mr. Baker has visited 

 Paris ; and also had the loan of the entire Berlin col- 

 lection, and has found in these more than a hundred 

 undescribed species. Dr. Witmack is going to pub- 

 lish very shortly a paper on Lehmann's Bromeliacea\ 

 of which about thirty are new. The collections 

 made by Andre in New Grenada and Ecuador have 

 now been thoroughly worked out by himself, and are 

 found to contain about sixty novelties. 



Plants in Flower in the Open Air at 



Kew. — It is almost unprecedented to see so many 

 Alpine and herbaceous plants in flower at this time 

 of the year at Kew. Many plants are growing fast, 

 such as Clematis, with young shoots 3 or 4 inches 

 long. Rhododendrons are just bursting into flower ; 

 a Smilax we also noticed covered with flowers — 

 indeed almost all plants are in such an advanced state 

 as one only expects to see abont February. Many 

 species of Wahlenbergia saxicola, Schizostylis 

 coccinea, Brodiasa Leichtlinii, Crocus Clusii, C. 

 ocholeucus, C. Cambessidesii, C. serotinus, and 

 many others, including C. alatavicus albus and C, 

 Korolkowi, spring flowering ; Lychnis pyrenaica, 

 Arabis procurrens, Anemone blanda, Lithospermum 

 prostratum, Sternbergia lutea, Campanula Porten- 

 schlagiana, Polygala chamoebuxus, Triteleia uni- 

 flora, Helleborus niger, and other species ; Aubrictia 

 deltoidea and vars., Viola odorata, V. tricolor vars,, 



Symphytum tuberosum, Grindelia lanceolata, Apo- 

 nogeton distachyon, &c. 



BOTANICAL MAGAZINE.— The December number, 

 which completes the sixty-fourth volume of the third 

 series, contains illustrations of — 



Begonia Schartfii, t. 7028. — An introduction of 

 Messrs Haaqe & Schmidt, of Erfurt, from the Islai d 

 of St. Catherine, South Brazil. It is one of the 

 grandest species of this popular genus. The plant 

 is about 18 inches high and hairy, the branches, 

 flower-stalks, and the under surface of the leaves are 

 blood-red, the leaves are dark green on the upper 

 surface, with reddish nerves, and are about 1 foot 

 long, very obliquely ovate-cordate, with rounded lobes, 

 and an acute sinus. The flowers are white with a 

 few red hairs outside, the male flowers being 2} 

 inches in diameter ; sepals round, petals narrow. 

 The females have elliptic segments, and measure 

 nearly 2 inches in diameter. 



Iris Smvarowi, t. 7029. — A native of Central Asia, 

 being gathered wild in Turkestan by Dr. Reoei. 

 in 1885. The segments of the perianth are 

 closely veined with oblique claret-purple lines on a 

 ground of greenish-yellow. The outer oblong- 

 cuneate with a lilac-blue beard ; inner oblong with a 

 long claw, sometimes bearded. The glaucous green 

 leaves are ultimately 1 foot long and a quarter of an 

 inch broad. The flowers are borne singly, on a 

 peduncle 1 foot long, bearing much reduced leaves. 



Pentapera sicula, t. 7030. — An ericaceous shrub, 

 with pale pink flowers. A native of Sicily, and also 

 recorded very recently from Cyprus and from Barcu,. 

 Illustrated in our columns for September 22 of this 

 year, p. 335, fig. 45. 



Hexisia bidentafa, t. 7031. — This Orchid is an 

 introduction from the United States of Columbia, 

 Panama, and Nicaragua. It has flowers of scarlet, 

 about 1 inch in diameter, and borne from between 

 the leaves in few-flowered racemes ; the segments 

 are ovate-oblong, obtuse, petals smaller than the 

 sepals. The lip is sharply deflexed from the claw, 

 which is adnate to the column ; it has straight sides 

 and a triangular apex, which is bifid, and darker than 

 the rest of the flower. It is pointed out that the 

 lip is not erect in the specimen figured, whereas in 

 the Genera Plantarum it is stated to be one of the 

 characters of the genus. 



"Primula Busbyi, t. 7032. — This is a very pretty 

 recently discovered American Primrose, and was intro- 

 duced into this country by Mr. A. Dean, Bedfont, in 

 1885. It was first found on the Mogollon Moutains, 

 in New Mexico, by a traveller whose name it bears. 

 It has also been found on the summit of Mount 

 Wrightson, in Arizona. The drooping flowers are 

 bright rose-red, with a darker eye, and yellow in the 

 tube, which is not thickened. The leaves are 

 3 — 5 inches long, narrowly spathulate, subacute, 

 callously crenulate, and narrowed to a slender 

 petiole ; pale green above. 



Hardy Flowers in December.— Mr. Bdr- 



bidge kindly sends us from Dublin a bouquet that 

 would not pass muster in Covent Garden, nor obtain 

 a Certificate from the Floral Committee — one to 

 which little or no commercial value could be assigned, 

 but which, nevertheless, is of great interest. We will 

 begin with Primroses and Polyanthuses, of which 

 there is a good bunch to lure us on. Then there is 

 a seedling single quilled pompon Chrysanthemum, of 

 a lilac colour, and delicious aroma, the quills showy 

 and attractive, but the real work is done by the less 

 conspicuous flowers in the centre. Amicia zygomeris, 

 a curious Leguminous plant, with huge stipules, 

 encasing, as in a box, the young pinnate leaves, and 

 with racemes of yellow Pea-shaped flowers, the upper 

 sepals very large in proportion to the other three, 

 and forming two side pieces like cheeks to the 

 flower, or again reminding one of those plates of 

 gold with which Dutch ladies are wont to bedeck 

 their temples. Doubtless these two side pieces, like 

 the stipules in the case of the leaves, are in some 

 way connected with the protection of the flower-bud 

 in the young stage, or with the fertilisation of the 

 flower, or both. Senecio pulcher ia yery showy with 



