July 25, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



293 



thorns, but these native trees are sought for almost in vain 

 in our public parks and pleasure-grounds. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Hybrid Sweet brier Roses. — The Sweet -brier, or Eglan- 

 tine, of the English hedgerows, is one of the most beautiful 

 of our native plants. It is also allowed a place in a few 

 gardens, mostly old-fashioned, I am afraid. But Lord Pen- 

 zance has added to the Sweet-brier just those characters 

 which were needed to make it attractive to all, namely, 

 variety in the colors and of greater durability in the flowers. 

 We have two beds of the Penzance hybrids (raised, I be- 

 lieve, from the Sweet-brier crossed with old-fashioned gar- 

 den Roses), and they have been delightful for the last 

 month or so. The possessors of the stock of these hybrids, 

 Messrs. Keynes, Williams & Co., of Salisbury, exhibited a 

 collection of them at the Rose show last week. They are 

 Sweet-briers in everything, stems, leaves, fragrance and 

 floriferousness, and their single or semi-double flowers 

 range in color from white to crimson and coppery-red. 

 They are charming plants for the lawn, for any position, in 

 fact, where an elegant shrub is wanted, and they are, of 

 course, as hardy as the Sweet-brier itself. Names have 

 been given to nine of the most distinct. These are Amy 

 Robsart, deep rose ; Annie of Gierstein, dark crimson ; 

 Brenda, pale blush ; Flora Mclvor, pure white, flushed 

 with rose ; Lady Penzance, coppery-red, yellow at the base 

 of the petals (a cross between Sweet-brier and Harrison's 

 Rose) ; Lord Penzance, soft fawn or ecru, yellow in the 

 centre and flushed with pink (of the same parentage as the 

 preceding) ; Lucy Ashton, white, with the petals edged with 

 pink ; Meg Merrilles, rich crimson ; Rose Bradwardine, 

 clear soft rose. Readers of Garden and Forest desirous of 

 possessing these Roses may like to know that Messrs. 

 Keynes, Williams & Co. offer them in November next. 



Genista virgata. — This is a king among Brooms ; one 

 might almost call it the grandest of all hardy June-flower- 

 ing shrubs. It is represented at Kevv by many huge bushes 

 twelve feet high and through, which have been established 

 many years among the trees as well as in several of the 

 shrubberies, and they all have been clouds of gold for the 

 last four weeks. Some Genistas are good for a few years 

 and then require to be grubbed up and started afresh, and 

 some are never good for much as garden-plants. But G. 

 virgata is never unsightly, is quite hardy, is easily multi- 

 plied from cuttings, transplants well, and when in flower in 

 June it is a gorgeous picture of golden-yellow flowers. 

 Strangely enough, it is a rare plant in English gardens, al- 

 though cultivated in the last century and described fifty 

 years ago by Dr. Lindley in as enthusiastic language as I 

 have used here. It is a native of Madeira and has been 

 called Spartuim virgatum. 



A New Hybrid Clematis. — Messrs. G. Jackman & Sons, of 

 Woking, exhibited last week a distinct hybrid raised by 

 them from the large-flowered variety Star of India and 

 the red-flowered C. coccinea. ■ It is intermediate be- 

 tween the two parents in the size and form of its flowers, 

 which are campanulate, almost trumpet-shaped in outline, 

 two inches in diameter and colored deep red-purple, with 

 a stripe of red down the middle of each of the four fleshy 

 petals. The leaves and habit are not unlike those of C. 

 coccinea, and Messrs. Jackman say that the plant is a vig- 

 orous grower, perfectly hardy and very floriferous. This 

 hybrid obtained a first-class certificate under the name of 

 Countess of Onslow. Such a cross between two plants so 

 divergent, especially in flower characters, is remarkable. 

 Has the cross between Clematis and Anemone ever been 

 tried ? According to Sir Joseph Hooker these two genera are 

 not separated by any good botanical characters. I have 

 tried Anemone Japonica with Clematis Stanleyi, but did 

 not succeed. 



Anchusa Italica, the Italian Bugloss, is one of our most 

 attractive hardy herbaceous perennials at this time of year. 

 It is an erect, freely branched bush six feet high, crowded 

 with hispid lanceolate dark green leaves, and thickly be- 

 spangled all over with rich gentian-blue flowers, each as 

 large as a shilling and borne in terminal racemes. It is 

 often described as a biennial, three feet high, with flowers 

 half an inch in diameter, but even in the poor soil at Kew 

 it is all that I have here described. For the herbaceous 

 border it is a plant of more than ordinary merit, as it looks 

 after itself, does not suffer in hot dry weather, and in the 

 color of its flowers it possesses an exceptional value, clear 

 blue being not too abundant among plants available for 

 the ordinary border. 



Talauma Hodgsoni was discovered in the Sikkim Himalaya 

 by Sir Joseph Hooker, and figured by him in his Himalayan 

 Plants, where he describes it as a small tree, twenty to forty 

 feet high, with large, handsome, coriaceous evergreen 

 leaves and fleshy, fragrant, white flowers nearly as large 

 as those of Magnolia grandiflora. It is common in the 

 Sikkim forests at 2,000 to 4, coo feet elevation. There are 

 two large specimens of it in the temperate-house at Kew, 

 and one of them is now flowering for the first time in cul- 

 tivation. Its leaves are two feet long by eight inches in 

 width, and the flowers, which are borne on short lateral 

 branches, have plum-purple sepals and ivory-white petals, 

 their odor being powerful and aromatic. T. Hodgsoni was 

 named in compliment to B. H. Hodgson, Esq., F.L.S., late 

 of the Bengal service, whose death, at the age of ninety, 

 occurred a few days ago. 



Angr/ECUm Fournierianum is a new species, which was 

 shown by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. this week, and received 

 a certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society. A 

 botanical description of it by Dr. Kranzlin is published in 

 the last number of the Gardeners Chronicle. He describes 

 it as a splendid novelty, of which I received fresh flow- 

 ers from Messrs. Sander & Co. in 1892. It is a very fine 

 plant, and a rival to /Eranthus Leonis, the flowers two 

 inches long, excluding the spur, and two inches in diame- 

 ter, the leaves fleshy, strap-shaped and two feet long. The 

 plant shown might be described as a small A. eburneum, 

 with erect scapes of white flowers, in which the lip is 

 three-lobed, the central narrowed into a point, the two 

 lateral rounded. It was introduced from Madagascar by 

 the exhibitors. Although not so showy as A. eburneum 

 and A. sesquipedale, it possesses the characters of a good 

 garden Orchid. 



British Fruit. — A great exhibition of British-grown fruit 

 will be held on September the 29th and the three following 

 days at the Crystal Palace, under the auspices of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society, and there is every promise that it 

 will be a success. Prizes of money as well as medals are 

 to be given, and the exhibits must be bona fide the 

 products of gardens in Great Britain and Ireland. An at- 

 tempt to organize such an exhibition was made two years 

 ago, but it fell through for want of management. The 

 Royal Horticultural Society has lately given proofs of its 

 capacity for running big shows, and they will, I believe, 

 astonish even those who know something of what can be 

 done in this country in the way of fruit production, if only 

 the weather will be on its good behavior. Lectures are to 

 be given by specialists in fruit culture, packing, etc., and 

 efforts will be made to hold' a general meeting of profes- 

 sional "-ardeners. ... . Tr 

 London. W. liaison. 



I have an opinion that the garden should look as though it 

 belonged to the house, and the house as though it were con- 

 scious of and approved the garden. In passing from one to 

 the other we should experience no sense of discord, but the 

 sensations produced by the one should be continued with a 

 delicate difference by the other. — Alfred Austin, in The Gar- 

 den that I Love. 



All buildings should be in unison with the immediate site in 

 which they are seen. — Planting and Rural Ornament. 1796. 



