May 6. 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



209 



would probably flourish if planted in the open. Any one who 

 has seen these plants at their best must admit that, whether 

 among large Palms in conservatories, or planted in masses 

 or as single specimens out-of-doors, they produce a particu- 

 larly grand effect. Some of the specimens at Kew must be 

 something like a century old. That here figured, for instance, 

 had a stem as much in diameter, and only a few inches shorter, 

 thirteen years ago than it has now, although it has been in 

 vigorous health almost from the first. The photograph from 

 which this illustration has been prepared was taken in 1883. 

 Kew. W. Watson. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 

 Lachenalias. — Mr. Moore, of the Glasnevin Botanical 

 Gardens, Dublin, read a valuable paper on these plants 

 and their cultivation in London last week. So far as I am 



The splendid and varied children of the comparatively poor 

 Hyacinthns orientalis may be pointed to as examples of what 

 has been done by selection, etc., with a plant very closely 

 related to Lachenalias. 



PLemanthus multiflorus.— This is one of the most beau- 

 tiful of the thirty-eight species of Haemanthus now known, its 

 large umbel of rich crimson flowers with golden anthers being 

 very handsome. In one of the stoves at Kew there is a plant 

 of it now bearing an umbel eight inches through composed of 

 about sixty flowers, each an inch and a half long, with linear 

 reflexed segments, and stellately arranged stamens one and 

 a half inches long. The scape is scarcely a foot in length, and 

 it precedes the leaves, springing from the centre of a globose 

 bulb three inches in diameter. This and H. Kalbeyeri, H. 

 Abyssinicus, H. tenuiflorus and H. filiflorus are all alike or 

 very nearly so. It is quite tropical, and should not be kept 

 dry at any time. H. multiflorus was introduced many years 

 ago, but it has never found much favor, because of its bad 



Fig- 37- — Enceplialartos Frederici Guilielmi. — See page 2o3. 



aware, nowhere are Lachenalias grown so successfully as at 

 Glasnevin, the spikes of flowers produced there being al- 

 most as strong as Hyacinths and the substance of the flowers 

 almost as great. Such kinds as L. tricolor, L. Nelsoni, L. 

 quadricolor, L. aurea, L. pallida, L. orthopetala and L. pen- 

 dula Mr. Moore can produce with spikes a foot long, the stalks 

 as thick as a man's little finger, and the flowers correspond- 

 ingly large. As commonly seen, Lachenalias are not good gar- 

 den plants, but no one who saw the fine examples with which 

 Mr. Moore's lecture was illustrated would deny to them a place 

 among the very best of early spring-flowering bulbous plants 

 for the greenhouse. A considerable number of hybrids have 

 been raised, some of them by Mr. Moore himself, the best 

 of them being L. Nelsoni, which was obtained by crossing L. 

 aurea with L. tricolor about ten years ago. There appears to 

 me to be in Lachenalias material which in capable hands 

 would soon produce a race of most valuable garden plants. 



behavior, as a rule, under cultivation. In this respect it is infe- 

 rior to H. Catherine, H. cimiabarinus and H. magnificus, which 

 are equally beautiful and at the same time easily kept in health . 

 Greenhouse Rhododendrons are represented at Kew this 

 month by a considerable number of Himalayan species, about 

 half a dozen of the Javanese hybrids, and as many forms of R. 

 formosum. The queen of the lot, in regard to size, elegance 

 and purity, is R. Rucklandii, of which there are two large plants 

 in full flower in the temperate house, their loose umbels of 

 enormous saucer-shaped, pure white flowers being very hand- 

 some, fragrant and durable. A hybrid raised at Kew between 

 this and R. Hookeri, and flowered several years ago, is note- 

 worthy on account of its having stood the severe weather of 

 the past winter much better than either parent, and as well as 

 the hardiest of the Himalayan species of this genus. The 

 Javanese kinds are flowering well in the temperate house, 

 where, apparently, they are as much at home as the Camellias, 



