December ii, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



597 



well ; not a plant of it was shown at the Chrysanthemum Ex- 

 hibition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The 

 flowers, however, were shown, and have the same attractive 

 qualities that excited so much enthusiasm last year. There 

 has also been exhibited this season, under the name of Louis 

 Bohmer, a flower having the hairy petals peculiar to Mrs. 

 Hardy ; the color of the flowers, however, is a dull pink, not 

 at all pleasing, at least in the specimen shown at Boston. 

 Whether Louis Bohmer is a sport from Mrs. Hardy or an 

 original seedling imported from Japan was not stated. 



Messrs. Pitcher & Manda have received, in a recent impor- 

 tation from Japan, among some very promising Chrysanthe- 

 mums, another specimen of Mrs. Hardy. Among the seed- 

 lings of this variety raised by Mr. Manda, and shown by him 

 during the season, there has been no appearance of the hairs. 

 One of the seedlings, named Bohemia, is a large, dark flower 

 of decided promise. Strangely enough, there does not appear 

 to have been any sport from Mrs. Hardy, though the un- 

 usually large numbers of that variety, which have been grown 

 this season, would lead one to expect this not unusual 

 occurrence. 



Of the varieties of recent introduction the following may be 

 noted : Alcyon, D^lie, Superbe Flore, Madame Pepee, Val 

 d'Andorre, Ed. Audiguier, W. H. Lincoln, L. B. Bird and John 

 Thorpe, all Japanese, have done well ; Mrs. G. Wright, Ava- 

 lanche and Condor are three good whites of the reflexed Jap- 

 anese type ; Mrs. H. Cannell, white, incurved Japanese, has 

 not done well, while Mr. H. Cannell, though not a very free 

 flowerer, appears to be a real addition to the large yellows of 

 the old Grandiflorum class ; Mrs. N. Davis, a yellow sport 

 from Princess of Teck, has all the good qualities of one of the 

 best of the large incurved Chinese kinds ; Marie Ouvray has 

 not shown itself to be a valuable addition to the long list of 

 early flowering varieties of more or less distinct violet shade ; 

 M. Gamier, a Japanese, with yellow ground, shaded and striped 

 brown-red, is a flne variety ; Souvenir d'Alfred Motte, reflexed 

 Japanese of a peculiar color, magenta and buff, is worth add- 

 ing to a large collection, and so too is Mrs. Falconer Jameson, 

 one of Cannell's new varieties, a flower colored buff and red, 

 with yellow points ; La Tosca, Japanese, fiery crimson, striped 

 brown, though a small flower, is good and distinct ; Cythere, 

 of the same class, purple-amaranth and shaded dull red, is also 

 good ; Magicienne, Japanese, color chamois with light rose 

 tints, is a large and early flower ; Vieil Or, though very rich in 

 color, is too flimsy in substance to be useful ; Etoile de Lyon, 

 a deep lilac-rose, margined with silver, of large size, though it 

 has not done well here, has succeeded so well on the other 

 side of the ocean that it should be given a second trial. 



The incurved Chinese flowers have fallen into undeserved 

 neglect in later years here, and the few valuable additions to 

 this class have not attracted the attention due them. One of 

 the best of these new-comers is M. Roux, a seedling raised by 

 Boucharlat and introduced in 1884. It has retained, even 

 this year, its good qualities of a low habit of growth and well 

 shaped, closely incurved flowers of a bright chamois yellow. 

 Ralph Brocklebank, a yellow sport of the old variety Meg Mer- 

 rilies, has the same serious defect, a dark centre. 



The seedlings of the year, of American production, are not 

 very numerous, nor are they, as a whole, very promising. 

 They have generally been exhibited as single large flowers 

 grown to the fullest size that high cultivation can give them. 

 It is not easy, therefore, to say how valuable they will prove for 

 general cultivation. It is, unfortunately, true that many of the 

 best new seedlings have been plants of bad constitution, capable 

 of yielding, in the hands of expert gardeners, wonderful results, 

 but comparatively valueless for the average grower. Some 

 most remarkable flowers, exhibited at the Boston show by Mr. 

 Brydon, gardener to Mr. Simpkins, were largely of this class. 

 Better flowers were never exhibited here, and, probably, better 

 could not be seen on any exhibition table in the world ; but if 

 the ordinary grower should select these plants for his own 

 collection he would inevitably be disappointed in the results of 

 his cultivation. 



Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, one of last year's seedlings, was 

 shown by Mr. Brydon, in good form and bright color,^but the 

 same flower, as exhibited by other growers, was dull and un- 

 worthy of its reputation. Ada Spaulding is not attractive in 

 color, at least was not so at the Boston exhibition, and is no 

 better in size and form than many more highly colored flowers 

 already in the market. 



The other conspicuous seedlings of 1889, so far as they have 

 been seen, must, in my opinion, -await the results of another 

 season's cultivation before they can be awarded a very high 

 place on the list. H P. VValcoit. 



Cambridge, Mass. 



Orchid Notes. 



Trichosma suavis. — This is one of the most attractive Orchids 

 in flower during the months of October and November. From a 

 botanical point of view, it is allied to Eria and Ccelogyne, but more 

 closely to the former genus than to the latter, and we find that 

 it was formerly known under the names of Eria sieavts, E. 

 coronaria :md Ccelogyne coronaria. It is a native of the Khasya 

 Hills, where it was discovered, and from thence introduced, 

 in 1837, by Gibson, who was traveling in that locality for the 

 Duke of Devonshire, whose place at Chatsworth was interest- 

 ingly desci'ibed in this volume of Garden and Forest, on p. 506. 



This species, which, by the way, is the only one yet known, 

 grows vigorously and flowers freely. Its green and succulent 

 terete stems are about two-thirds as thick as an ordinary lead 

 pencil and about a foot high, with two oblong-elliptic, acute 

 leathery leaves at the summit, whence emerges the peduncle, 

 bearing from five to eight fragrant flowers, each borne on a 

 pedicel about an inch long. The creamy white sepals and 

 petals are about an inch long and broadly lanceolate in shape, 

 the two lateral sepals being connate at the base, forming a 

 kind of pouch. The white lip has three lobes, the lateral ones 

 being erect and handsomely striped with dark reddish crim- 

 son, which circumstance reminds one of its relation to Ccjelo- 

 gyne. The middle lobe is recurved, bright yellow, with from 

 five to eight narrow, undulating, elevated keels in front of two 

 pure white raised crests, which run parallel to the base ; and 

 the column is greenish white behind, streaked with dark crim- 

 son in front. I have seen a so-called variety, Bella, in nur- 

 series, which is supposed to have richer colored flowers than 

 the type. 



This plant is somewhat scarce, but it is well worth a place 

 in every collection on account of its masses of dark green 

 foliage, which form an excellent background for the trusses of 

 creamy white flowers. It may be grown in the cool end of 

 the Orchid-house, in a compost of fibrous peat and moss, and 

 the pots must be well drained. When in active growth the 

 plants may be liberally watered, and at other times require 

 more or less attention in this respect, according to atmospheric 

 conditions ; but it will be found necessary never to let the 

 plants get too dry at the roots, as they have no pseudo-bulbs to 

 serve as a reservoir for moisture. John Weathers. 



St. Albans, England. 



Dendrobhim bigibbtim is a very handsome species, much 

 resembling D. superbiens, and certainly one of the handsomest 

 of the Australian kinds. It is a rather dwarf growing plant, 

 producing slender fusiform stems, about nine inches long, 

 from which spring peduncles bearing racemes of rich, rosy 

 purple and very broad-petaled flowers. They oftentimes 

 continue to throw out these racemes from the same stems for 

 several successive years. We grow this plant in Cattleya Triance 

 house, suspended from the roof, where it gets abundant 

 light and sunshine. It does best here in small cribs, with a little 

 sphagnum moss and charcoal arjd a good supply of water 

 when growing. We never allow it to become dry enough to 

 shrivel, as it is with difficulty restored ; but it likes a period of 

 rest, as it appears to grow much more freely afterward. 



Staatsburg-on-Hudson. F. AtkillS. 



Begonia octopetala hybrida Lemoinei. — This plant was intro- 

 duced in the spring of 1889 by M. Lemoine, of Nancy, with the 

 statement that it is the result of a cross made some years since 

 between the white flowered B. octopetala and some of the best 

 of the tuberous section. The conns do not difter mate- 

 rially from those of B. octopetala, and start into growth 

 naturally in June, throwing up numerous rather coarse leaves 

 of a character intermediate between the parents and nearly 

 radical. The flowers, borne on rigid foot-stalks twelve to 

 eighteen inches long, in clusters of four or five, on my plants 

 are about two inches in diameter. Varieties sent out were 

 pink, white antl magenta. Each plant throws up five to eight 

 flowering stems. The variety Anemone came into l^loom 

 in October, followed by Fleur d'Automne in November, but 

 at the end of the month the variety Ville de Nancy shosvs no 

 sign of blossom, though apparently as strong as the others. The 

 flowers have all been males on my plants. As the leaves and 

 flowers, thrown well above the foliage, have a distinct and pleas- 

 ing port, this cross is likely to prove of some value in the fall 

 when the hybrid tuberous kinds are about over, though one 

 regrets the absence of female flowers, so that with the vigor of 

 the Octopetala parent we might infuse more size and sub- 

 stance into the blooms. Such further crosses might also refine 

 the foliage. B. octopetala is somewhat impatient of root confine- 

 ment, and perhaps tiiis hybrid could be successfully cultivated 

 planted out on a green-house bench, though in such a position 



