5H 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 461. 



violent variation in buds, and that these sports are often 

 of value. But to depend on sports for new varieties is as 

 much of a lottery as to wait for a good seedling- to turn up. 

 Only one in a thousand is ever of value as a variety. Is it 

 not reasonable to believe that if horticulturists were to take 

 the slight variations presented in the trees of our best 

 varieties as the starting-point for the improvement of exist- 

 ing varieties and propagate them by judicious selection in 

 each succeeding generation, that a marked improvement 

 would result in all of our best types of fruit ? 



Experiment Station, Newark, Del. G. Harold Powell. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Eulophiella Peetersiana. — Under this name some im- 

 ported Orchids were offered for sale at Messrs. Protheroe & 

 Morris's auction-rooms lately. They are described by the 

 venders, Messrs. F. Sander & Co., as "a glorious novelty 

 sent home (presumably from Madagascar) by Mr. Mocoris. 

 It is like the recently introduced Eulophiella Elisabethse. 

 The flowers are large, produced on strong spikes, their 

 color a deep rose. It is a plant of vigorous growth, pro- 

 ducing its spikes freely from the axils of the lower leaves.'' 

 The plants offered were long, stout-branched rhizomes, 

 like those of Iris Pseudacorus, the thickest being two inches 

 in diameter, yellowish white, marked with leaf-scars an 

 inch apart, the upper portion clothed with the sheathing 

 bases of dead leaves four inches in diameter. The flower- 

 scapes are evidently very stout, the remains of them being 

 fully half an inch in diameter, and they are produced from 

 the leaf axils at about four inches from the apex of the 

 rhizomes. I know nothing of the leaves or flowers, but, 

 whatever the plant may be, it is certainly a most remarka- 

 ble Orchid, and, if a Eulophiella, it should prove an inter- 

 esting addition to the Orchids already introduced from 

 Madagascar. 



Odontoglossum Halli x crispum. — There are numerous 

 so-called natural hybrids among cultivated Odontoglos- 

 sums, but hitherto the genus has not been operated upon 

 with much success by the hybridizer. The first hybrid 

 raised artificially was O. Leroyanum, the result of a cross 

 between O. crispum and O. luteopurpureum, made by 

 Monsieur Leroy, gardener to Baron E. de Rothschild, 

 Gretz, and flowered in 1890. A second hybrid has now to 

 be recorded, its parents being O. Halli-leucoglossum and 

 O. crispum Cooksoni. It has been raised by Mr. Norman 

 C. Cookson, of Wylam-on-Tyne, who showed it last week 

 and obtained for it a first-class certificate. It combines the 

 characters of the two parents both in color and form of 

 flowers, being cream-white with red-brown blotches, the 

 lip white with a yellow crest and a large red brown blotch 

 in front. It was by far the most interesting hybrid of the 

 many that were shown at the last meeting of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society. It is significant of the importance 

 of hybrid Orchids nowadays that the bulk of new Orchids, 

 and almost all the best, are those that have been raised by 

 the hybridizer. 



Cymbidium cyperifolium. — A plant of this rare Himalayan 

 species at an auction sale this week commanded six 

 guineas. It was in an eight-inch pot, and bore an elegant 

 cluster of grassy leaves, with one scape of eight flowers, 

 which are about as large as those of C. elegans, but colored 

 greenish yellow, with brown parallel lines and a whitish 

 lip with a few red spots. 



Cattleya Mantini. — This is a hybrid of garden origin, 

 which flowered two years ago in the collection of Monsieur 

 G. Mantin, Olivet, France. It is the result of crossing 

 Cattleya Bowringiana with C. Dowiana aurea. Five 

 plants of it have just been sold by auction and realized 

 from eleven to fourteen guineas each. The pseudo-bulbs 

 are about fifteen inches long, thicker than in C. Bowringi- 

 ana, and each bears a pair of stout leaves nine inches by 

 three. The flowers are borne several together on short 



racemes, and are larger than those of C. Bowringiana, of a 

 deep amethyst color, the lip veined with gold. 



Cypripedium Baron Schrceder. — A hybrid between Cypri- 

 pedium Fairreanum and C. CEnanthum superbum. It was 

 shown by its raisers, Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, and received 

 a first-class certilicate, being, perhaps, the prettiest of all 

 the hybrids of Fairreanum parentage. In form it is very 

 elegant, the upper or dorsal sepal is white, shaded at the 

 base with green, and lined and dotted with purplish red. 

 The petals have the downward curve peculiar to the Fairre- 

 anum race, and are pale yellow, lined and spotted with 

 purple-brown ; the pouch is small, red brown, shaded with 

 green and yellow. 



L^lio-Cattleya Decia alba. — Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons 

 raised a hybrid called Lselio-Cattleya Decia in 1894 from 

 L. Perrini and C. Dowiana aurea. They exhibited last 

 week, and obtained a first-class certificate for a white 

 variety of it named as above, and which is a most beautiful 

 Orchid, the flowers being large, intermediate in form between 

 the two parents, and of the purest white in the sepals and 

 petals, the lip rosy mauve, with reticulating whitish lines. 

 Hybrids such as this are really most valuable productions. 



Dracaena Broomfieldii. — A new and handsome foliage 

 plant was lately shown under this name by Messrs. F. San- 

 der & Co. at a meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 ami received a first-class certificate. It is evidently allied 

 to Dracsena arborea, a native of tropical Africa, although 

 it is said to have been introduced from the "South Sea 

 Islands" by Mr. J. Broomfield, after whom it is named. 

 The plant shown was about a yard high and two feet 

 through, the leaves gracefully arched, one and a half feet 

 long and two inches wide, gradually tapering both ways 

 and colored rich glossy green, with broad margins of ivory- 

 white and thinner stripes of the same color scattered 

 through the green. The stem is stout and short-jointed, 

 and the leaves are very closely arranged upon it, forming 

 a rather dense head. Apparently the plant retains its color, 

 the oldest leaves being almost as brightly variegated as 

 the youngest. It requires stove treatment. The exhibitors 

 have now a trio of most distinct Dracaenas in this plant, D. 

 Godsefriana and D. Sanderiana. 



Lowia. — This is a genus of Scitaminese, with lanceolate 

 acuminate green leaves not unlike those of an Aspidistra. 

 The flowers are borne in clusters about the bases of the 

 leaf-stalks, and in form and color they are not unlike the 

 flowers of some Maxillarias. There are two species, Lowia 

 longiflora and L. maxillarioides, and they are both natives 

 of Malaya. Both have been recently introduced into culti- 

 vation, L. maxillarioides to Kew, where it grows and flow- 

 ers freely in a stove. A figure of it was published in The 

 Botanical Magazine in 1894, t. 7351. It has leaves nine 

 inches long and flowers two inches across, the sepals pur- 

 ple and the lip green. L. longiflora has been introduced 

 by Mr. Bull and has lately been figured in The Gardeners 

 Chronicle. .It has larger leaves than the other species, and 

 the flowers are composed of three strap-shaped olive-col- 

 ored sepals three inches long, the two upper petals linear 

 and fimbriated at the tip, with the lower one lanceolate, 

 two inches long and pure white. The genus is not likely 

 to be popular with gardeners, but it is interesting and 

 likely to gratify cultivators of curious plants. 



Pterisanthes tolita. — Plants of this remarkable Malayan 

 vine are now in flower at Kew. The genus is closely 

 related to Ampelopsis and Vitis, having twining stems, 

 cordate green herbaceous leaves and tendril-like flower- 

 stalks. Its most remarkable character is in the forms ot 

 its inflorescence, which is a pendulous flat fleshy receptacle, 

 irregular in outline, about six inches long and an inch in 

 width and colored purple. The flowers embedded on both 

 sides of the receptacle are mostly sessile and hermaphro- 

 dite, while on its margins are stalked unisexual or sessile 

 flowers. The fruits are flask-shaped berries containing 

 several seeds. Specimens grown at Kew were recently 

 exhibited before the Linnaean Society, where they were a 

 source of much interest to the botanists. 



