Jose 20, Vies. ] 



J0T7BNAL OF HOETICtTLTtlRE AND COTTAGE GAEDENBE. 



463 



seemed the only practicable plan. It would be afterwards 

 dug in, and, it wag hoped, a new character be given to the 

 land. Thus things were not done in a careless style, but 

 intelligence and energy were brought to bear ; and where 

 this is the case difficulties, even those of climate, are suc- 

 cessfully combated. In noticing these gardens I have 

 had in ray mind many somewhat similarly situated, where 

 employers and gardeners are discouraged by the difficulties 

 that lie in their way, an^l are apt to envy their more favoured 

 brethren in other loc lUties ; but let them take heart of 

 grace. 



I should not omit tn sav that a good deal of stimulus has 

 been given to gardening iu the neighbourhood of Derry by 

 the establishment of a horticultural society, vei-y similar in 

 its rules and working to that which we have had in our 

 neighbourhood, and which has been a very great encou- 

 ragement to all kinds of gardening amongst us. I am sur-e 

 that it is a great boon to any place, where such things are 

 attempted and done ; and however discouraging the attempt 

 may at first sight appear, the difSoulties will be eventually 

 overcome. — D., Deal. 



EOYAL HOETICULTHRAL SOCIETY. 



Floral Committee, June 10th. — A Sub-committee was 

 held in connection with the show of the same day. Seed- 

 lings and florists' flowers were few in number, and of no 

 particular merit. Tiie new plants were very numerous and 

 interesting, and upwai'ds of sixty certificates were awarded, 

 nearly all the plants having previously received awards from 

 the Committee. It seems a strange custom for the new 

 plants to receive certificates again at the great shows ; it 

 appears more reasonable that plants of the current year 

 which have been awarded certificates should on these oc- 

 casions have the certificates attached to them, and should 

 then be exhibited in collections, and the greatest number of 

 first-class certificates in the collections should entitle the 

 exhibitor to the gold Banksiau medal, and the second most 

 valuable collection should have the second gold Banksiau 

 medal. 



On this occasion Messrs. Veitch and Mr. Bull carried oif 

 the greatest number of certificates. Mr. E. P. Francis ex- 

 hibited a seedling Zonale Pelargonium, Hertford Gem. Mr. 

 Bull sent again Verbena Popular, a variegated form ; Chrys- 

 anthemum Sensation, a beautifal variegated Pompone, use- 

 ful for edging, and which received a first-class certificate; 

 six seedling Petunias, of which one named Blooming, a dark- 

 veined variety, was the best ; Mimulus duplex seedlings ; 

 Fuchsias Evangeline and Hector; a beautiful collection of 

 Zonale Pelargoniums in small pots ; also a large collection 

 of spotted Pelargoniums. From Messrs. Veitch came Good- 

 yera Veitchii, a hybrid with beautifal foliage, to which was 

 awarded a first-class certificate on the 16th of May, and 

 the came at this meeting ; and from Mr. Wilson Zonale 

 Pelargonium Fulham Rival, also variegated Zonale Pelar- 

 gonium Lady Howard. Messrs. Henderson, Wellington 

 Koad, sent two of the new double scarlet Pelargoniums, 

 with weak and ragged trusses ; unless these double varieties 

 improve very much they will not be favourites with the 

 public ; also Pelargonium peltatum elegans, which is quite 

 an acquisition among the old-fashioned Ivy-leafed Pelar- 

 goniums — bright green foliage, flowering freely, with pale 

 Ulac or rosy compact trusses, decidedly a very distinct and 

 ^sry good thing. It received a first-class certificate. It 

 is somewhat remarkable that this useful section of Pelar- 

 goniums is not taken up for improvement, though so 

 very well adapted for basket and all decorative work. 

 Messrs. E. G. Henderson also exhibited Petunia variegata, 

 Joseph Haudrechy, plants too small to afford any opinion of 

 their merit; and Centaurea ragusina compacta, very like 

 C. argentea, but more compact and feathery in foliage. It 

 received a fixst-class certificate. Mr. J. Praser exhibited 

 six seedling Pelargoniums, but none of them sufficiently 

 distinct or improvements on others in cultivation. Mr. 

 Thompson, Ipswich, sent a Primula Parryi, with deep 

 purplish rose flowers, in foliage very unlike its relatives — 

 first-class certificate ; Pentstemon grandiflorum, from North 

 America. This is a noble plant of robust habit, bearing 

 large, pale lilac flowers which are too much closed, but it 



will, doubtless, be the source of quite a new feature among 

 Pentstemons, which have been so much improved of late. A 

 first-class certificate was awarded it. 



Mb. Bateman's LEOTtrRE on Dendrobia, June 13 : Mr. 

 Henry Cole in the chair. — Mr. Bateraan, in commencing his 

 lecture, briefly adverted to Coryanthes Sumneriana, Cypri- 

 pedium caudatum, and AGrides crispum, which were, along 

 with some other Orchids, in the room. The subject of his 

 lectui-e, however, said Mr. Bateman, was the great Indian 

 genus Dendrobium. Eumphius had made a division of 

 Orchids which was not so cumbrous as that adopted by 

 modern botanists, and was probably better a,dapted for thoss 

 who had little or no knowledge of the subject. Kuraj)hina 

 divided Orchids into two classes — the noble one, or those 

 which grow on trees, and the rustic one, or those which 

 grow on the ground. Thus, with Orchids, there was high 

 life and low life, but no middle class — they were all either 

 patricians or plebeians. To the former belonged the Den- 

 drobia, and to the latter the Orchids v/hioh we had plucked 

 in eai'ly years by the hedge-sides. Whether it were true or 

 not that the cradle of the progenitors of our race was in 

 Armenia, between the head-v/aters of the Euphrates and 

 Tigris, he would not pretend to say, but certain he was, 

 that Milton was right in placing no Orchids on the trees in 

 the Garden of Eden. It was not until the fifteenth or six- 

 teenth century that man took any intelligent notice of tree 

 Orchids ; and the discoverers of America were so bent on 

 the pursuit of mammon that they passed the Orchids on the 

 trees without noticing them. Old Hernandez, a Spanish 

 botanist, was the first to give anything like a figure of a 

 tree Orchid. That was early in the seventeenth century. 

 In the frontispiece to his work, from which he had borrowed 

 the large sketch hung up in the room, were three Orcliids, 

 one of which, there could be no doubt, was Stanhopea 

 tigrina, and another wa? Lslia graudiflora, although Her- 

 nandez had dragged them down from tlie trees to the 

 ground. They were described under barbarous names — the 

 LjeUa, for instance, as Cortico-atzonte-coxotchil, which should 

 raalce us thankful for such names as we now have. Turning 

 now from the new world to the old, more than a century 

 afterwards Eumphius propounded a theory which, if not 

 his own, he endorsed. Noticing the resemblances which 

 certaiu Orchids bore to birds, beasts, and insects, his theory 

 was that these plants had their origin in the droppings of 

 the animals which the plants resembled. Absurd as this 

 theory was, it was not, perhaps, more so than some of our 

 own day. Reverting to Rumphius's division of ground and 

 tree Orchids, Eumphius had named the latter all Angrcecum, 

 a name which, it was believed, was derived from the Mala.yan 

 word for tree ; and, though the name still held its ground ai 

 applied to that popular and increasing genus, the Angrs- 

 cums, these were entirely confined to Africa, and a name was 

 still wanted for the tree Orchids of the east and of the west. 

 Linnceus called the latter Epidendrum, from epi, upon, and 

 dendron, a tree, because they all grew on trees ; and he 

 thought that, when the world was fully explored, there might 

 be a hundred species of tree Orchids, little dreaming that 

 there would be not merely a hundred species, but at least 

 as many genera, some with between 200 and 300 species. 

 Swartz, another Swedish botanist, called one of these Den- 

 drobium, from dendron, a tree, and lios, life, they living on 

 traes like the Epidendra of the western hemisphere. Sir 

 Rowland Hill had put us all in districts, au'^', if he (Mr. 

 Bateman) might be allowed to imitate Sir Rowland, he 

 would do the same with Orchids. Referring to a map of 

 the world hung up in the room, AngrEECum, being peculiar to 

 Africa, might be taken as representing S., or the southern 

 district; Dendrobia, E.C. ; Epidendrum, W.C. ; and the 

 ground Orchids of more temperate regions would supply 

 the other letters. He had long been doubtful whether Epi- 

 dendrum or Dendrobium would head the poll. Twenty-five 

 years ago, when he began to cultivate Orchids, the former 

 had the lead, but now he thought Dendrobia were the more 

 numerous. Each genus numbered between two and three 

 hundred; but numbers were not the best test, but beauty. 

 Out of forty or fifty Epidendra which he had grown, he 

 found only three worthy of being kept, and two of these 

 were in the room — namely, E. vitellinum and E. macro- 

 i chilum roseum. On the other hand, out of the same num- 



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