Garden and Forest. 



[February 29, 18 



for home consumption. The rains will wash the soluble 

 substance of the wilted grass into the earth to feed the growing 

 roots." During succeedingsummers as the years roll on, the 

 lawn should be perpetually enriched by the leaching of the 

 short leaves as they are often mown. Neither leave a 

 very short growth nor a very heavy growth for winter. 

 Experience alone must guide the owner. If cut too closely, 

 some of it may be killed or start too late in spring; if 

 left too high during winter, the dead long grass will be hard 

 to cut in spring and leave the stubble unsightly. After passing 

 through one winter the annual weeds will have perished and 

 leave the grass to take the lead. Perennial weeds should 

 be faithfully dug out or destroyed in some way. 



Every year, add a top dressing of some commercial 

 fertilizer or a little finely pulverized compost whch may be 

 brushed in. No one will disfigure his front yard with coarse 

 manure spread on the lawn for five months of the year. 



If well made, a lawn will be a perpetual delight as long as 

 the proprietor lives, but if the soil is thin and poor, or if the 

 coarser grasses and clovers are sown instead of those named, 

 he will be much perplexed, and will very likely try some expen- 

 sive experiments, and at last plow up. properly fit the land and 

 begin over again. Tliis will make the cost and annoyance 

 much greater than at first, because the trees and shrubs have 

 already filled many portions of the soil. A small piece, well 

 made and well kept, will give more safisfaction than a larger 

 plot of inferior turf. /jt; y_ Seal. 



Horticultural Exhibitions in London. 



At a late meeting of the floral committee of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society at South Kensington among many novelties 

 was a group of seedling bulbous Calanthes from the garden of 

 Sir Trevor Lawrence, who has devoted much attention to 

 these plants and has raised some interesting hybrids. About 

 twenty kinds were shown, ranging in color froin pure white to 

 deep crimson. The only one selected for a first-class certi- 

 ficate was C. sanguinaria, with flowers similar in size and shape 

 to those of C. Veitchii, but of an intensely deep crimson. It is 

 the finest yet raised, surpassing C. Sedeni, hitherto unequaled 

 for richness of color. The pick of all these seedlings would 

 be C. sanguinaria, C. Veitchii splendens, C. lactea, C. nivca, 

 and C. porphyrea. The adjectives well describe the difterent 

 tints of each, and they will be universally popular when once 

 they find their way into commerce. 



Cypripedium Leeanum maculatum, also shown by Sir Trevor 

 Lawrence, is a novelty of sterling merit. The original C. Lee- 

 aniun, ^^'hich is a cross between C. Spicerianuni and C. insigne 

 Manlei, is very handsome, but this variety eclipses it, the dorsal 

 sepal of the flower being quite two and one-half inches broad, 

 almost entirely white, heavily and copiously spotted with pur- 

 ple. It surpasses also C. Leeanum sitperbum, which commands 

 such high prices. I saw a small plant sold at auction lately for 

 fifteen guineas and the nursery price is much higher. 



Laelia anceps SchrcederK is the latest addition to the now 

 very numerous list of varieties of the popular L. anceps. This 

 new form, to which the committee with one accord gave a first 

 class certificate, surpasses in my opinion all the colored 

 varieties, with the possible exception of the true old Barkeri. 

 The flowers are of the average size and ordinary form. The 

 sepals are rose pink, the broad sepals very light, almost white 

 in fact, while the labellum is of the deepest and richest velvety 

 crimson imaginable. The golden tipped crest is a veritable 

 beauty spot, and the pale petals act like a foil to show off the 

 splentior of the lip. 



Two new Ferns of much promise received first class certi- 

 ficates. One named Pteris Claphamensis is a chance seedling 

 and was found growing among a lot of other sporelings in 

 the garden of a London amateur. As it partakes of the charac- 

 ters of both P. tronitla and P. scrrttlata, old and well known 

 ferns, it is supposed to be a natural cross between these. The 

 new plant is of tufted growth, with a dense mass of fronds about 

 six inches long, eleganfly cut and gracefully recurved on all 

 sides of the pot. It is looked upon by specialists as just the 

 sort of plant that will take in the market. The other certi- 

 ficated fern, Adiantitm RegincE, is a good deal like A. Victoria; 

 and is supposed to be a sport from it. But A. Regincs, while it 

 has broad pinnas of a rich emerald green like A. Victoria;, has 

 fronds from nine to twelve inches long, giving it a lighter and 

 more elegant appearance. I don't know that the Victoria 

 Maidenhair is grown in America yet, but I am sure those who 

 do floral decorating will welcome it as well as the newer A. Regi- 

 nce. A third Maidenhair of a similar character is A. r/io'do- 

 phyllum and these form a trio that will become the standard 



kinds for decorating. The young fronds of all three are of a 

 beautiful coppery red tint, the contrastof which with the emer- 

 ald green of the mature fronds is quite charnnng. They are 

 warm g-reen-house ferns and of easy culture, and are supposed 

 to be hybrid forms of the old A. scutmu. 



Nerine Mansellii, a new variety of the Guernsey Lily, was one 

 of the loveliest flowers at the show. From the common 

 Guernsey Lily it differs only in color of the flowers. These 

 have crimpled-edged petals of clear rose tints ; and the umbel 

 of flowers is fully six inches across, borne on a stalk eighteen 

 inches high. These Guernsey Lilies have of recent years come 

 into prominence in English gardens since so many beautiful 

 varieties have been raised, and as they flower from September 

 onward to Christmas they are found to be indispensable for 

 the green-house, and indoor decoration. The old A''. Fother- 

 gillii jnajor, with vivid scarlet-crimson flowers and crystall- 

 me cells in the petals which sparkle in the sunlight like myriads 

 of tiny rubies, remains a favorite among amateurs. Baron 

 Schroeder, who has the finest collection in Europe, grows this 

 one only in quantity. An entire house is filled with them, and 

 when hundreds of spikes are in bloom at once, the display is 

 singularly brilliant. 



A New Vegetable, a Japanese plant called Choro-Gi, be- 

 longing to the Sage family, was exhibited. Its botanical name 

 is Stachys tiiberifera and it was introduced first to Europe by 

 the Vilmorins of Paris under the name of Cros7ies du Ja- 

 pan. The edible part of the plant is the tubers, which are pro- 

 duced in abundance on the tips of the wiry fibrous roots. 

 These are one and a half inches long, pointed at both ends, 

 and have prominent raised rings. When washed they are as 

 wliite as celery and when eaten raw taste somewhat like Jeru- 

 salem artichokes, but when cooked are quite soft and possess 

 the distinct flavor of boiled chestnuts. A dish of these tubers 

 when cooked look like a mass of large caterpillars, but the Com- 

 mittee pronounced them excellent, and no doubt this vegetable 

 will now receive attention from some of our enterprising seeds- 

 men and may become a fashionable vegetable because new 

 and unlike any common kind. The tubers were shown now 

 for the first time in this country by Sir Henry Thompson, the 

 eminent surgeon. The plant is herbaceous, dying down an- 

 nually leaving the tubers, which multiply very rapidly. They 

 can be dug at any time of the year, which is an advantage. 

 The plant is perfectly hardy here and would no doubt be so in 

 the United States, as it remains underground in winter. [A 

 figure of this plant with the tubers appeared in the Gardener's 

 Chronicle, January 7th, 1888. — Ed.] 



Phalaenopsis F. L. Ames, a hybrid moth orchid, the result of 

 intercrossing P. grandiflora of Lindley with P. intermedia Por- 

 tei (itself a natural hybrid between the little P. rosea and P. ama- 

 bilis), was shown at a later exhibition. The new hybrid is very 

 beautiful. It has the same purplish green leaves as P. amabilis, 

 but much narrower. The flower spikes are produced in the 

 same way as those of P. grandiflora, and the flowers in form 

 and size resemble those of that species, but the coloring of the 

 labellum is more like that of its other parent. The sepals 

 and petals are pure white, the latter being broadest at the lips. 

 The labellum resembles that of P. intermedia, being three- 

 lobed, the lateral lobes are erect, magenta purple in color and 

 freckled. The middle or triangular lobe is of the same color 

 as the lateral lobes, but pencilled with longitudinal lines of 

 crimson, flushed with orange, and with the terminal cirrhi of 

 a clear magenta. The column is pink, and the crest is adorned 

 with rosy speckles. The Floral Committee imanimously 

 awarded a first-class certificate of merit to the plant. 



A New Laelia named L. Gouldiana has had an eventful his- 

 tory. The representative of Messrs. Sander, of St. Albans, 

 the great orchid importers, while traveling in America saw it 

 bloonfingin New York, in thecoUection of Messrs. Siebrecht & 

 Wadley, and noting its distinctness and beauty bought the stock 

 of it. The same week another new Lffilia flowered in England 

 and was sent up to one of the London auction rooms for sale. 

 As it so answered the description of the American novelty 

 which Messrs. Sander had just secured it was bought for the 

 St. Albans collection, and now it turns out that the English 

 novelty and the American novelty are one and the same thing, 

 and a comparison of dates shows that they flowered on the 

 same ckiv, although in different hemispheres. As, however, it 

 was first discovered in the United States, it is intended to call it 

 an American orchid, and that iswhyMr. JayGould has his name 

 attached to it. In bulband leaf the novelty closely resembles Z. 

 albida, and in flower both L. anceps and L. autiimnalis. The 

 flowers are as large as those of an average form of L. anceps, 

 the sepals are rather narrow, the petals as broad as those ofZ, 



