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flower, with a dark eye, and petals set wide. 

 The flowers often show several shades of colour 

 at the same time. 



A. intermedia. — A minor botanical form 

 from Greece. 



A. Kotschyi. — A kind collected by this bo- 

 tanist in Persia, and interesting as the most 

 easterly form yet reported. 



A. libanotica. — From the mountains of 

 Syria (and often regarded as a species), grow- 

 ing in dense downy tufts, with leaves fringed 

 with hairs and small palid flowers, white in 

 the centre, but of little beauty. 



A. Lilac Queen. — A seedling of free robust 

 growth and long stems, bearing flowers of 

 shaded lilac inclining to mauve; somewhat 

 straggling in habit. 



A. Mooreana. — For garden purposes iden- 

 tical with Campbelli. 



A. Moerheimi. — A pretty and distinct kind 

 with good habit, and very large flowers of pale 

 rose-shaded mauve with a greenish centre, and 

 paling with exposure. Stout grey foliage, and 

 a long season of flower. 



A. olympica. — A plant from the mountains 

 of Bithynia, with pretty flowers of soft lilac, 

 and coming very near Eyrei in its darker forms. 

 Free and good in colour. 



A. parvijlora and A. Pinardi. — Botanical 

 formsfrom Persia andAsia Minor respectively. 



A. Pritchard's A i . — A fine dark seedling 

 of good habit, and very large flowers of deep 

 violet-purple, much veined ; leaves large and 

 of bright clear green. This new kind recent- 

 ly gained an award of merit, but its effect has 

 yet to be seen when massed in the open. Pro- 

 mises well, but hardly equal in colour to Dr. 

 Mules. 



Purple Robe.— A seedling of free habit and 

 showy purple flowers. 



A. purpurea. — -One of the oldest of gar- 

 den kinds, running through seedling forms 

 into violacea. A plant of erect habit, with 

 broad deeply-toothed leaves and leafy stems, 

 bearing large purplish flowers. Forms of this 

 are grown with leaves variegated by white and 

 yellow. 



A. Royal Purple. — A seedling raised by 

 Messrs. Barr, with abundant flowers of bright 

 reddish-purple. 



A. Souvenir of William Ingram. — A seed- 



ling with very large flowers of rosy magenta 

 shaded to a whitish centre, the colour paling 

 and the petals reflexing with age. Free and 

 good in habit, with narrow grey leaves deeply 

 cut, upon stout rambling stems of rosy red. A 

 good plant where this colour is desired. 



A. taurica. — A distinct kind, very dwarf 

 and compact in its growth, which iscompressed 

 into neat rounded tufts. It spreads slowly, 

 needing full sun and a dry corner, being sensi- 

 tive to wet. It loses its leaves in winter but is 

 quite hardy and the best of all in habit, hap- 

 piest when sheltered within a sunny fissure. 

 It flowers rather late, with small rounded 

 blossoms of deep violet with a distinct eye. 

 A white flowered form is known as alba. 



A. violacea. — A good early kind, with 

 large flowers of deep violet-purple fading to 

 reddish-violet. It is free inseed,yieldingmany 

 seedlings with flowers of a reddish colour. 



A. IV. Marshall. — A seedling from Leicht- 

 \ lini, with flowers of deep reddish-purple. 



Himalayan Rhododendrons in the North 

 of Ireland. — I am sending some flowers of 

 Rhododendron Thomson?', a fine bush of which is 

 growing in the spring garden at Castlewellan, 

 and has been a magnificent sight for the past 

 couple of weeks — the deep blood-red coloured 

 flowers almost dazzling to look at in the sun- 

 light. The plant is i i feet in height and 37 feet 

 in circumference, and is bearing 380 trusses 

 of flowers having nine flowers to the truss. It 

 is growing in deep rich peat soil in a well- 

 sheltered southern exposure and is in the 

 most robust health. The following varieties 

 of Himalayan Rhododendrons have also been 

 flowering very freely in the same garden for 

 some weeks past :- — R. Auckland?', R.barbatum, 

 R. campanulatum and its varieties, R. calophyl- 

 lum, R. campy locaspum, R. fulgens, and R. ni- 

 veum. Some of these are larger than R. Thom- 

 son?', especially R. niveum, which is very fine. 

 Most of the Himalayan Rhododendrons will 

 stand as much severe weather as R. ponticum, 

 as they are very seldom injured by frost, and 

 deserve to be more extensively planted as they 

 come into flower several weeks before the hy- 

 brids. Shelter from storms they do require, 

 as the foliage gets badly broken by rough 

 winds. — T. Ryan, Castlewellan. 



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