140 EARLY-FLOWERING PEAS IN AUSTRALIA 



season to a few weeks only. The introduction of earlier- 

 flowering varieties represented by Earliest of All Blanche 

 Ferry, the Telemly, and similar strains were therefore 

 received with great favor and as a distinct acquisition. In 

 an article written by Arthur Yates, the Sydney seedsman, 

 he observes that these varieties flower in Winter or Spring 

 in the warmer districts and yield a supply of blooms for 

 several months, at a time when there is very little else avail- 

 able. 



Some of the enthusiasts took to selecting, and suc- 

 ceeded first in getting forms of the grandifloras. It hap- 

 pened as in so many previous instances that in the year 

 1909 a sport appeared, the novelty being in a batch of 

 Spencers in the garden of James Young, Sydney, and its 

 characteristics were larger blooms and an upright growth; 

 this was in full bloom when the others were only a few 

 inches high, and it had gone to seed before the normal type 

 had commenced to show flower buds. " The seeds of this 

 plant were saved and sown the following Autumn, when it 

 came quite true to the parent, and instead of remaining 

 more or less dormant all the Winter, as the ordinary Spen- 

 cers do, it commenced to bloom in the late Autumn and 

 continued to flower right through the Winter, going to 

 seed in the early Spring as the Telemly and American 

 Winter-flowering varieties do in Sydney, the Winters here 

 being comparatively mild, with only light frosts." A 

 point to which special emphasis is directed is the vigor and 

 strength of this variety, which has been named Yarrawa. 

 The flowers possess a bright rose standard with lighter 

 wings on a carmine ground, and it at once occupied the 

 place in Australia that Countess Spencer had on its first 

 appearance in England. It is the first of a race of Winter- 

 flowering Spencers which will be as popular in Australia 



