8 THE GARDENERS 
CHRONICLE. 
[January 1, 1887, 
few other Conifers which have been snapped off 
with apparently as much ease and abruptness as 
if they had been made of glass. The shortness 
and directness of the line of breakage in these 
hey had been sawn right across. 
Some of the most curious and unexpected wreck- 
ages here are those of tall Lilacs broken, and in 
one case apparently pulled pent out by the roots, 
as the whole plant was borne to the ground by the 
the Lilacs. Another singular feature is worthy 
of n while many of the Cedars of 
n in one place have suffered severely from 
кене breakage, those at a little distance off 
have suffered but little ; thus showing that even 
among Cedar trees within close proximity the one 
may be taken and the other left. 
At Sarsden, Oxon, we hear of great destruction 
among the trees, including a fine Walnut a hun- 
dred years old or more. 
The damage done by the snowfall in the 
London district has not been so disastrous as in 
other localities, where ornamental Conifers find 
and the fine conservatory at the rear of the 
Albert Hall have lost several hundreds 
panes of glass. The heavy fall of snow ia the 
wind have done considerable damage 
both old and young, at Kew. Large eo have 
been torn off old Oaks, Chestnuts , Beeches, &с. 
Such thingsas Chinese Arbor-vitzs, ‚ Cupressus ma- 
crocarpa, Cryptomeria elegans, &c., were weighed 
аби 66 to the ground by the weight of snow, 
and many very seriously broken. Many young 
plants in the collections of deciduous trees, such 
as Celtis, Quercus, &c., are completely ruined. 
The houses have not suffered, except the 
Winter Garden, where portions of ornamental 
ironwork have bee 
of rain. We append for comparison the rainfall, 
also recorded by Mr. Symons, for Decem 
ted i 
of some beige; separa; : 
part of t е country, which shows some remark- 
aig differences in the quantity registered at 
ose places 
RAINFALL OF DECEMBER 26, 1886. 
Inches. 
Forty-hill, Enfield, Middlesex wo LAT 
MENT Y Wood, Hawkhurst, Kent... 1.51 
enterden, 1,52 
Royal Boke Gardens” Бада s Park, London... 1.6 
: Camden London te «c 4 ЕЦ 
‚ Weymonth, Dorset 1.82 
ar , Dorset ., v. .26 
St. Catherine's, Horndean, Hants... 2.88 
Lodge, Southampton, Hants .. ui 5.18 
In Wiltshire, as we learn from e Mee 
. of The Gardens, Heytesbury, th rm, 
which and 
siti bl ight, bein, 
pem a pitiable si 
complete wreck, an d ahis 
i йын. of Bokhara. 
truded $ inch from the 
It is greatly to be киге that this snowstorm, 
so sudden and so av 
I and ا‎ ‘of 0 
PEAR BLIGHT. 
We all know how ve and superficial 
our knowledge of so-called * blight "is, and the 
e 
full ences of these matters is 
contrive to ела scientific expeits in 
the matter, and then there be a chance of 
g at some definite eigen The Pear 
blight, beni is common in some of America, 
is a case t. was attribu itd to insects, 
fungi, ор, electricity and lastly, to Bacteria. 
last view is shown 
fe 
the discovery of the Bacteria (in itself of little 
moment); 2, by inoculation of previously healthy 
trees with the Bacteria ; 3, b by removing the Bacteria 
J. THUR has lately printed, in the Proceedings of 
the Philadelphia Acade Natural Sciences, the 
results of his experiments. 
PLANT mc 
Bravunt.—One of the pow owered 
P eie with segments of pale coms mottled with 
— Garten, 
ra, t. 
туйы ЖОП. Regel, Gar tenflora, t 
undulate, flowers seis with а Ne. eye. — 
PLANTS NEW OR NOTEWORTHY. 
ÆCHMEA . MEXICANA, Baker, in Journ. Bot., 
= 1879, p. 165. 
Tuis fine species has just flowered for the first 
time at Kew. It was discovered by Bourge 
mountains of the province of Orizaba. Our plant 
the Morren collection. 
Acaulescent; leaves twenty to thirty, in a dense 
rosette, lorate, with a deltoid-cuspidate tip, above 
2 feet long, 3 inches broad in the middle, 4—5 inches 
at the dilated base, pale green, maculate with darker 
green, not very rigid in texture; lepidote pubescence 
obscure; prickles small, deltoid-cuspidate, lower 
tipped with brown; peduncle stout, a foot long, 
densely furfuraceous, as is the panicle-rachis ; 
bracts colourless, lanceolate, scariose, erect ; panicle 
oblong-cylindrical, a foot long, 4—5 inehes broad ; 
lower branches 2--3 inches long; lower branchlets 
forked; pedicels erecto-patent, 2 inch long; calyx 
with ovary oblong, green, i inch long, densely fur- 
furaceous; petals bright greg оя prune pro- 
calyx ; s and pistil 
shorter than the petals. J. G. ‘Baker. 
FLEXUOSA, Sele, n. sp.* 
This is afine new Æchmea, one ofthe largest of all 
the known kinds, which has just flowered at Kew 
for the first time, although we have had it from 
EL D c 
1877. Itis allied to the Guianan Æ. Jenmani and 
Brazilian JE. ure and is remarkable for its 
very large horny leaves and large lax panicle, with 
pon ultimate безл апа glabrous sessile glossy 
pale pink flowers. We received it from Messrs, 
Linden, but we five no exact E as to its 
native country. 
aulescent ; leaves 20—30, in a dense rosette, 
feet in circumference, lanceolate 
b 
peduncle stiffly erect, stout, 14 foot long; bracts pale, 
lanceolate, ке, scariose; panicle ovate, bipinnate, 
141—2 feet long, 6—8 iothék in diameter; lower 
branches $4 inches long, with "E lower branch- 
lets; ultimate rachises flexuose; flowers distant, 
nisi erecto-patent ; RR none ; calyx wi 
y $—§ inch M oblong, glossy, pale pink; 
ejti horny, rather longer than the ovary, 
imbricated, онд deltoid, with a small erecto- 
patent brown mucro; petals bright red, lingulate, 
shortly protruded ; 
the petals. J. G. Baher 
CYPRIPEDIUM OBSCURUM, лур. orig. obs. ex hort. . 
Veitch. 
Ovary light brown with dark purple ribs. 
Upper sepal nearly ишы apiculate, whitish, with. 
brown nerves. sepals much shorter than 
the lip, broad elliptic, apiculate, whitish, with ten 
rows of dark purple spots, only two reaching the 
point of the connate body. 
with brown a at the base. 
Lip of Cypripedium villosum, st purple-brown, 
ochre-coloured underneath and ven with brown 
spots. Staminodium of Cypripedium villosum, which 
may have been one of the parents. 
NOTICES OF Books. 
A MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS Crocus. By 
George Maw, F. .A., F.G.S. 
: Dulau & 
4to, 850 pages, seventy-one coloured figures, 
aad & си 
already announced to our readers the 
journeys to Asia е the Levant, Greece, Italy, 
Spain, the Alps, and Pyrenees, for the of 
studying the plants in 5 native localities, and 
sparin | 
g 
hy ae and cultivate tham 
cons sists, first, of a section on the life- 
Crocuses ; 
h ae ron the history, 
I uses out ‘Saffron ; 
dispositis, Machibus furfuraceis ultimis 485 ; ЖЗ 
stamens and pistil shorter than . 
her, 
It was kindly - 
: sent me by Mr. Harry Veitch. H. G. Rchb. f. 
cm Yes 
ES едЕ АЙАР 
to get living plants s 
