April 14, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OE HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



275 



extra fine, £5 ; Cypripedium Stonei, new and rare, £5 15s. ; 

 Cypripedium species nova (Veiteh), very rare, good plant, 

 £10 10s. ; Europedium Lindeni, fine plant, £6 ; Trichopilia 

 suavis, strong plant, £6 ; Trichopilia orispa, the finest of all the 

 Trichopilias, splendid plant, £25 10s. ; Dendrobium lituiBorum, 

 strong plant, undoubtedly one of the finest Dendrobiums in 

 cultivation, £26. 



LIST OF ANNUALS. 

 Being a grower of annuals, &e., for a London house, I beg 

 to add a few more names to the list of your correspondent 

 of Newport, in the Journal for March 31. They are annuals 

 which I think are well worth a place in any garden. 



1. Aster, cockade or crown. 



2. ranunculus-flowered. 



3. Acroclinium roseum 



4. Calandriniaspeciosa. 



5. discolor. 



G. Calliopsis tinctoria. 



7. Callirhue pedata. 



8. Cermthe gymnandra. 



9. Centrantkus niacrosiphon. 



10. Chcenostoma polyantha. 



11. Clarkia elegans rosea, double. 



12. pulchella integripetala. 



13. Collinsia bicolor, pure white. 



14. Collomia coccinea. 



15. Cosmidium Burridgeanum. 

 1G. Datura ceratocaulon. 



17. Didiscus cceruleus. 



18. Erysimum avkansanum. 



19. Helichrysum macranthuin. 



20. brachyrhynchum. 



21. Hibiscus africaaus major. 



22. Thunbergi. 



23. Larkspur, branching tricolor. 

 21. double white. 



25. Lobelia gracilis campacta. 

 2G„ Linaria bipartita. 



27. Lupinus nanus and others. 



28. Nemesia compacta clcgans. 



29. Nigella hispanica. 



30. double Roman. 



31. Obeliscaria pulcheriima. 



32. Oenothera Druinmondi. 



33. bistorta Yeitchiana. 



34. Lamarckiana. 



35. Oxalis rosea. 



36. Petunia, Buchannan's blotched. 



37. Podolepis gracilis. 



38. chrysantha. 



39. Poppy Carnation (in six varieties, 



double.) 



40. Sanvitalia procumbens. 



41. Scabious, fine German mixed. 



42. stellata. 



43. Sedum azureum. 



44. Sphenogjne speciosa. 



45. Statice Bonduelli. 



4G. Suitan (three varieties). 



47. Valerian, garden (two vaiieties). 



48. Verbena aub'.etia. 



49. venosa, 



50. Whitlavia grandiflora. 



8 and 31 are more curious than pretty, but I think are worth 

 growing ; and 16 for its beautiful scent in the evening, a long way 

 off. 3, 19, 20, 42, 45, are all very pretty ; also noted for dried 

 flowers for winter bouquets. 43 is very pretty on rockwork ; 

 18, very showy, more so than E. Peroffakianum. 



You say that 41 in your correspondent's list from Newport, you 

 are not much acquainted with. It (Oxalis tropseoloides), makes 

 a very nice edging for beds, &c, having very dark brown foliage 

 and small yellow blossoms ; but once get it in the bed and you 

 cannot destroy it, it seeds so heavily. 49 is very handsome, but 

 so very delicate that a shower soon spoils it. 15 is a compact 

 plant with small golden Eowers. 



I should like to see annuals grown more widely ; I think 

 there are so many really very beautiful and easily grown. They 

 do not require that nursing that many of our flowers in beds at 

 the present time demand.— S., South Weald. 



THE FIRST IMPROVER OF THE PANSY. 



I presume that your respected and practical correspondent, 

 Mr. Robson, has not grown grey in his profession, as in his 

 paper on the subject of the Pansy, No. 105, March 31st, he 

 Bays, " It is impossible to say at what precise period the parent 

 of our garden varieties of the Heartsease or Pansy first attracted 

 the attention of some zealous and far-seeing florist." I have 

 been an amateur for more than fifty years, and can well remem- 

 ber the introduction of the Heartsease. 



The Heartsease, though a native of Britain, was never cul- 

 tivated in order to render it a florist's flower, till taken in hand 

 by Mr. Thomson, of Iver, Bucks, and by him was brought into 

 admiration ; and from his original stock have all the beautiful 

 varieties of the flower been produced, and in the south and west 

 of England he was called the father of the Heartsease. 



Mr. Thomson was gardener to the late Admiral Lord Gambier, 

 who resided at Iver, Bucks, near Uxbridge ; and Mr. Thomson 

 says, in a paper now before me, that in 1813 or 1814, Lord 

 Gambier brought him a few plants collected in the fields near 

 the mansion at Iver. They were the yellow and white, and his 

 lordship requested him to cultivate them. "Having done so, it 

 was soon discovered that a great improvement was effected in 

 the flowers, and this led to as many other sorts being collected 

 as could be discovered in the neighbourhood. About four years 

 after this commencement I had raised many seedlings from the 

 originals ; and one which took Lord Gambler's fancy was named 



Lady Gambier, another George IV., a third was called Ajax. 

 The first good-shaped flower was named Thomson's King." 



At the time Mr. Thomson was making these improvements in 

 the Heartsease, I resided some six or seven miles from the place, 

 and often and great was the pleasure to go over his seed-beds 

 and watch his colony putting forth their beauties for future fame, 

 I can conjure them up before me while I am now writing, even 

 at this distance of time. 



At that time the only mark in the eye of the Heartsease was a 

 few dark lines, and the dark eye which is now considered one of 

 the chief requisites of a first-rate flower had never been seen, or 

 even contemplated. Nor did Mr. Thomson take any merit to 

 himself for this peculiar property ; for one day having a chat 

 with him on the subject, and complimenting on the same, he 

 said, " It was entirely the offspring of chance. On looking one 

 morning over a collection of Heaths which had been sadly neg- 

 lected, I was struck (to use a vulgar expression), all of a heap, 

 by seeing what appeared to me a miniature impression of a cat's 

 face steadfastly gazing at me. It was the flower of a Heartsease 

 self-sown, and hitherto left to ' waste its beauty ' far from 

 mortal's eye. I immediately took it up, and gave it ' a local 

 habitation and a name.' This first child of the tribe I called 

 Madora, and from her bosom came the seed which after various 

 generations produced Victoria, who in her turn has become the 

 mother of many even more beautiful than herself." 



Thus the origin of the cultivated Heartsease ; and so' many 

 varieties did Mr. Thomson raise, that he has told me he was 

 often foreed to go to Shakspeare for a name for them. Since 

 his time so many persons have carried on the cultivation that 

 the varieties are now almost endless. 



It is now more than twenty years since I have heard of 

 Mr. Thomson ; but, if still in the land of tl:e living, I hope he is 

 receiving the reward of his perseverance and industry. — Dahl, 

 Manchester. 



[Soon after Mr. Thomson had thus improved our native 

 Heartsease, Mr. Archibald Gorrie adopted this pretty flower as 

 a pet. He lias recorded that about 1824 he received two varieties 

 from Mr. Brown, of the Kinnoul Nurseries, with an injunction 

 to pay attention to their culture. He raised many varieties from 

 them, and the names of some of the best will be found in Loudon's 

 " Gardener's Magazine" for 1832. Mr. Gorrie was the first, we 

 believe, to obtain for the Pansy admission to the rank of a 

 florist's flower, and with great difficulty he secured its introduc- 

 tion into the schedule of the Perthshire Horticultural Society. — 

 Eds. J. or H] 



THE TRUE GILLIFLOWER. 



Having heard sometimes the Stock, and sometimes the 

 Sweet William, called " Gilliflower," would you tell me which 

 is the " true Gilliflower ? " Also, what is the botanical name of 

 the common Wormwood ? — A Novice. 



[The true " Gilliflower" is the Carnation. The Stock, it has 

 been said, was called the " Stock Gilliflower," because it was 

 sold chiefly in " Stocks Market," the old herb-market in Buck- 

 lersbury ; but Dodonseus states that in Holland it was called 

 the Stock Violet (stemmed Violet), and that certainly had no 

 reference to the English herb- market. It seems more probable 

 that the term "Stock" was applied to distinguish it by its 

 habit of growth from the Carnation or GilliSower. We never 

 heard of the Sweet William being called the Gilliflower. The 

 botanical name of the common Wormwood is Artemisia vulgaris.] 



IS NIEREMBERGIA GRACILIS HARDY? 



I hope for a reply in the affirmative, knowing as I do 

 that it will stand any moderate winter in a partially sheltered 

 border entirely unprotected out of doors. Indeed, I never 

 could have brought myself to the belief that this small, graceful- 

 habited plant could have assumed so striking an appearance had 

 1 not seen it. Let the reader fancy to himself a plant of this 

 bright little plant, some foot and a half in diameter, covered 

 with a mass of fully expanded blooms, in the moderately heated 

 rays of the sun upon a forenoon in early June, and count aide 

 by side some eighteen or two dozen of the same. I can truly 

 say that the effect is most pleasing. 



It may be worth while to try this upon a moderately dry 

 sheltered spot. Seen as above, they ware planted in ane of 



