CHRONICLE. 
[May 21, 1887, 
678 THE GARDENERS’ 
show us the ap iq of the лаў оЁ Сегага апі 
ТНЕ мазна T EDGED Ион, and there was а golden opportunity for 
L 
= 
RIC UL 
my paper on the "history P the flower at the 
Rd Conference, 1886, I have presented a series 
the Alps, the Primula Auricula of the botanists. 
the same method I have assigned the origin of 
the alpine Auricula to the supposed hybrid Primula 
pubescens, and this, taken at the valuation of Pro- 
must 
sals were warmly debated, they 
n of 
say that Sir Joseph Hooker, Mr. aker, and 
the Rev. F. D. Horner, concur in m of the 
parentage of our two great sections ard 
of g 
It is no part of my plan on this occasion 
to enter further into that matter, 
I have carried back the history of the edged 
read of was called “ Honour and 
Fate had emerged from the abstract to the actual in 
order to have a hand in providing a name for the 
Honour and Glory plainly set before us, fixing the 
date of its origin as Vides end not y than 1734. 
In Parkinson's Paradisus, p. 237, are figures of 
Auriculas in which арав аге Add but the 
draughtsmanship is of so rough an order that it 
would be unsafe to found a critical opinion on any of 
them. While, however, we may lament that the 
wed florists of the olden time were not careful of 
interests in their floral portraiture, we are not 
ани the aid of the facile pencil in respect of 
evidence of the kind of flower that gave birth to the 
edged Auricula. There were men who understood 
flowers in days when uriculas were unknown, 
and when possibly the striped Auriculas had not long 
been invented. It is generally understood that for 
the Auriculas of the garden we are indebted to 
Dutch florists, who made the first beginning 
domestication | 
ebt Dutch painters 
representations testify to the pure love of Nature by 
which the Dutchmen of old time were animated both 
in their horticultural and pictorial arts. The artists 
of the real Dutch school have never been equalled 
y time before or since in the directness of their 
porary works 
for example, for the French did follow, as gus 
thought, the wonderful contribution of the Nether- 
lands to the joy of the world. The fact is the Dutch 
painters of .the golden time loved Nature, and lived 
as near to her as circumstances would allow, but 
their Rond disciples, in common with disciples of 
other nations, loved th emselves and lived from 
ature, and so faile The 
one painted the thing as it was; th i 
his vain fancy, it ought to be. First in the throng 
of the hmen who have left on record the cha- 
racters of the flowers of 200 years since, I will name 
‚ Heem, Abraha Mignon, and Jan Van 
plendid groups of flowers, 
ondon florists in the last exhibition of Old Masters 
they are usually in trusses of 
кез or twelve; the pips are of the size and form of 
how Auriculas с Ше rm day, with bold yellow 
6596 & dat paste, and a bold, broad margin marked 
with stripes of colour radiating from the centre. You 
in the diagram that Van Huysum's 
distinct geometrical properties ; the 
t 
modern canons Wool reqnire were such striped 
flowers now in demand. 
It will be observed, then, as the result of a com- 
parison, that in the progress óf time the rays have 
become consolidated into a belt by the Mire. of 
the colour inwards, thus leaving а margin 'the 
green colour, which, as we have agreed in ‘rethinks 
was the sole colour of the Auricula in the first 
instance before it became a yellow flower on the 
lps. Ido not insist on this view, for I am content 
to deal with facts, and the facts appear to demon- 
strate that the formation of the edge is a late process, 
and the facts do ана suggest that the edge 
is formed in accordance with a large plan ws rs 
much more than mm any fancy or foible of m o 
wa say that the 
n much 
fashion in floricultur 
ciis in a sho ow Аан теш: 
meal, 
AS contitution 
1 a 
dark zone on the leaf 
sum's flowers 
show an ea tien of the yellow to the ro with 
heavy rays of кш overlaid ; there i is no green trace- 
able; that in the Auri is a late dA piu 
and it has а heres of some sort 7 altogether 
from our tastes and ibis аз florist: 
For a moment let me direct your CS toa 
few collateral facts. In the old books there are no 
figures or descriptions of edged Carnations, Those 
of the times of Van Huysum and Gerard were flaked 
and spotted, and the spotted flowers were called 
Picotees. The origin of the term has been much 
debated, but the end of the story is that it came from 
France, and was applied to a flower distinguished by 
spots and blotches. The edged Picotee is a late 
growth, and offers an analogy to the Auricula. The 
colour has undergone a process of concentration and 
of segregation, taking an isolated position on the 
very edge of the petals, but always showing a ten- 
dency to run inward as a kind of reversion to its 
original state. The lateness of the origin of the 
florist Picotee is a matter, as it appears to me, of 
peculiar biological interest, Again, we have edged 
and tipped Dahlias, of later origin than edged Car- 
nations, and, like them, fitful in behaviour, the edge 
tending ever to thrust its colour downward on the 
face of the florets, and so spoil the flower for the 
florist's purpose e lateness of the edged Dahlias 
accounts for their scarcity and inconstancy; for in 
truth the Picotee edge is in process of formation, 
for in these matters N 
command than her biped moth that flutters in the 
flame of its small passions for an hour, and then is 
seen no more. 
It "(€ that flowers do not begin business with 
edges, cannot say they end with them, 
say 
атаи the end may be. It is of 
great significance that the edge of the Auricula is 
separato 
ПИЕ ыа т сш 
sion from the centre, but the green suggests that the 
га] 
Amaryllis, and other flowers, suggesting that definite 
edges will be formed in time, but t our est e examples 
are the Auriculas, Picotees, Dahlias. "These are iro lage 
developments, and they suggest that the due 
of the edge is the result of cultivation, and a 
end to aim at іп the selection of seedlings ees the 
framing of exhibition schedules 
NURSERY NOTES. 
MR. B. S. WILLIAMS, 
G the many things of interest to the visitor 
s" éatabilishrien better done than 
ong years Dm Mr 
love for the once popular 
t 
em 
Hour are pese and give every promise of & 
bloom the course or three weeks, 
lue, and very free ring ; 
грани bullatum, a profusely trol age, vith 
active sub- 
owers. 
In the small house, at present occupied mainly 
by Indian Azaleas, some fine Clivias were in bloom, 
a particularly fine variety being observed in С, 
Verschaffelti, a seating form raised here; the кз» 
A named, the colours being so 
cibus in combination with the smaller Ferns, 
ially when grouped in the greenhouse or in 
E 
m 
g 
ў 
rooms 
a n *ndieca were 
bserved: of great excellence were dade a pure 
white Ades full form ; Bertha Froebel, crimped at the 
edge; Miss Bins, an Pendet introduction ; Madame 
Jean ees a pad double at remarkable 
for its regulari hape. Some o 
cent E phuc Map, ue d a 
double orange-scarlet ; Dame Mathilde, a pink, wi 
petals edged with white; and Fürstin Bariansky, à 
now much admired kind. 
THE ORCHID EXHIBITION, : 
glancing over the magnificent display of 
ith x 
nhair Ferns, 
favourites, Lelia р 
uavis and V. tricolor, and the no less beau- 
im lii, 
are pproachable for making 
а structure, success of the | 
whole display is to be traced in “at of these gr : 3 
~ d rg grand 
the large stock of selected spec has for 
old exhibition plants which Mr. W 
many years cherished. The Lelia purpurata - 
