174 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 323. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



NEW and rare plants 'exhibited at the fortnightly meet- 

 ings of the Royal Horticultural Society may be said 

 to comprise everything of any value that is introduced into 

 English gardens. Every meeting now brings large num- 

 bers of exhibits such as connoisseurs delight to examine, 

 and the number of certificates awarded is considerably 

 greater than it was a few years ago. The meeting last 

 week was, as usual, remarkable for the number of fine 

 Orchids shown. The following plants were of exceptional 

 interest, and were awarded certificates : 



Eulophieixa Elisabeth* was shown in flower by Sir 

 Trevor Lawrence. I have more than once described the 

 peculiarities of this distinct and beautiful Orchid, which, as 

 shown that week, is full}' as handsome as it was repre- 

 sented to be by its introducers. Sir Trevor's plant bore 

 two scapes each a foot long, and clothed for two-thirds of 

 their length with waxy flowers two inches across, pure 

 white, flushed behind with pink, the buds bright purple ; 

 the lip is three-lobed, small and white, with a yellow disk. 

 Dendrobium Falconeri giganteum, also from Sir Trevor 

 Lawrence, is distinct in having longer and thicker pseudo- 

 bulbs than the type, while the flowers are half as large 

 again and richly colored. It was awarded a first-class 

 certificate. 



Brassia Lawrenciana, a handsome plant, now rare in col- 

 lections, although introduced over fifty years ago. Mr. R. 

 J. Measures sent a beautiful example of it. the long narrow 

 segments, suggestive of spiders, and colored green, yellow 

 and brown, with a creamy white lip, giving the plant just 

 that kind of appearance which most of us associate with 

 Orchids. As it had never had a certificate the committee 

 awarded it one, presumably to attract attention to it. 



Epidendrum Ellisii is a new species which will shortly 

 be described in the Keiv Bulletin by Mr. Rolfe from material 

 supplied by Mr. W. Ellis, of Dorking, who exhibited it in 

 flower at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 where it was awarded a first-class certificate. It belongs 

 to the section Euepidendrum, and is very near E. longatum. 

 The flowers are borne in a large elegant panicle, and are 

 an inch across, colored rich rosy red. 



Dendrobium crepidatum. — A very fine form of this old- 

 fashioned, and now neglected, species was shown by Lord 

 Rothschild, under the name of Tring Park variety ; the 

 flowers were as large again as the type, white, heavily 

 tinged with rich rosy purple, the lip orange-yellow at the 

 base, white in front, with a crimson apex. It was awarded 

 a first-class certificate. 



Dendrobium Hildebrandii, a new species from the Shan 

 States, Upper Burma, was shown by Messrs. Low & Co. It 

 has pseudo-bulbs like those of D. nobile, flowers in short 

 axillary racemes on the leafless pseudo-bulbs, and each 

 flower is as large as D. tortile, and colored creamy white, 

 with a deep yellow velvety lip, suggestive of the lip of D. 

 aureum. I have seen dried specimens of this Dendrobium 

 which show that it varies considerably in the shade of yel- 

 low of the sepals and petals, some being almost pure white, 

 others yellow and others greenish yellow ; the lip also 

 varies, some of the flowers having eye-like blotches of pur- 

 ple on the disk of the labellum. 



Oncidium Lucasianum, from Messrs. F. Sander & Co., may 

 be called a glorified O. abortivum, the lip, the most con- 

 spicuous part of the flower, measuring an inch across and 

 colored rich yellow. It obtained an award of merit. 



Anthurium Chamberlainianum. — This is a very handsome 

 species, which was first flowered in the collection of Mr. 

 Chamberlain, M.P. , after whom it was named by Dr. Mas- 

 ters about twelve years ago. Mr. Chamberlain exhibited 

 a plant of it last week, which was of astonishing dimen- 

 sions, the heart-shaped leaf-blades, measuring three feet in 

 length and width, being elevated on semi-erect straight 

 thin stalks five feet long, while the spathe was nearly a foot 



long, also cordate and colored dull flesh-red. It is one of 

 the most striking of the large-leaved Anthuriums. There 

 is a small example of it now in flower at Kew. 



Richardia hastata, shown as R. Lutwychei, is a plant 

 which is likely to come into favor again in consequence of 

 the interest aroused in this genus by the introduction of 

 R. Pentlandii and R. Elliotiana. The first-named has me- 

 dium-sized yellow spathes with a blotch of purplish-crim- 

 son at the base. 



Iris Helenje, shown in flower by Mr. H. J. Elwes, is a 

 beautiful species with large lilac flowers veined with red 

 and having dark purple fall-petals. It was introduced in 

 1880 from Palestine. It belongs to the Oncocyclus sec- 

 tion, and is, according to Mr. Baker, very near 1. Sari. 



Iris Robinsomana, of which a description was published 

 in Garden ard Forest, vol. iv., p. 352, prepared from a fine 

 specimen, flowered in a sunny greenhouse at Kew in 1891, 

 was shown in flower by Mr. Bartholomew, of Reading. His 

 plant was small, having been grown in a pot, and the flow- 

 ers were not as large as those produced at Kew. This Iris, 

 however, is of greater value as a graceful foliage-plant than 

 for its flowers. It is almost as large as the New Zealand 

 Flax (Phormium tenax), but instead of the leaves being 

 stiff they are curved and elegant. The plant is a native of 

 Lord Howes Island. 



Senecio sagittifoeius. — This fine plant is now flowering 

 again at Kew, where it gets cool greenhouse treatment. I 

 noted it in Garden and Forest last year as a plant likely to 

 prove valuable in the garden, and especially in places 

 where it could be grown permanently out-of-doors. It 

 forms a large rosette of sagittate leaves, each three feet 

 long and about a foot wide, with a crested midrib, and the 

 flowers, which are borne in a huge corymbose panicle 

 eight feet high, are white, with a yellow eye, and measure 

 one and a half inches across. Mr. Gumbleton, who has 

 tried it out-of-doors in his garden near Cork, writes recently : 

 '■ I hope you will put out into the open border one or more 

 of your fine young plants of Senecio sagittifolius, as it is 

 quite hardy, the twenty-nine degrees of frost experienced 

 here in January last having left unharmed the two plants I 

 put outside last summer. One of these is now showing three 

 spikes of bloom, one from the main crown and two from 

 side shoots." The Kew plants are all offshoots from the 

 plant flowered last year, the central part dying after the 

 flowers faded. 



Prunus serrulata. — This is a large double-flowered Ja- 

 panese Plum, which has been in cultivation at Kew about 

 ten years. It is in every way as beautiful as the finest 

 double-flowered Cherries, the flowers being fully one and a 

 half inches across, semi-double, and white, tinged with rose. 

 Small trees of it are wreathed in bloom at the present time, 

 and among hosts of all kinds of hardy Rosacea? — all flow- 

 ering exceptionally well this year — they are the most at- 

 tractive. P. serrulata does not appear to be known in 

 gardens. The nearest approach to it is one sent out by 

 Mr. Anthony Waterersome years ago as Cerasus Watered, 

 but in this, fine though it is, the flowers are smaller and 

 slightly more tinged with pink. Certainly P. serrulata, 

 which was obtained for Kew from France, is a spring-flower- 

 ing tree of exceptional merit. [Cerasus Wateri is a form of 

 Prunus Pseudo-Cerasus, with semi-double flowers. — Ed.] 



Daffodils at Kew. — Probably you have heard enough 

 about Daffodils for one season, but I cannot refrain from 

 mentioning them again for the purpose of enforcing the 

 lesson taught by their use as "bedding plants" for spring 

 effect at Kew. The large terrace garden in front of the 

 Palm-house, which in summer is filled with the usual dis- 

 play of red Geranium and yellow Calceolaria, is now a glori- 

 ous picture of yellow, all the beds being aglow with Daffodil- 

 flowers, including thousands of Emperor, Empress, Grandis, 

 Cynosure, Sir Watkin, etc. These, rising out of a setting 

 of well-kept rich green turf, make a charming, refined and 

 uncommon display, a monotone in yellow, a color always 

 effective in the garden, but especially welcome in spring. 

 The Tulip and Hyacinth displays of previous years will not 



