Xvi PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Potatoes. Messrs. Carter and Co., High Holborn, staged about a 

 hundred dishes of Potatoes, which included all the best varieties 

 in commerce. Some of the best were the International, Trophy, 

 Main Crop, Breadfruit, Manhattan. They also staged very fine 

 heaps of Carter's Magnum Bonum Potatoes and Scotch Champion, 

 both well-known disease-resisters, and a collection of Turnips and 

 Swedes comprising about sixty-two varieties, many of them excel- 

 lent examples. 



SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE. 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, K.C.S.I., in the Chair. 



Monstrous Flower of Horse Radish. — The Rev. G. Henslow 

 reported on some flowers of a Horse Radish sent by Mr. Whitelegge, 

 of Ashton-under-Lyne. The calyx, corolla, and six stamens were 

 normal. The glands, however, were enlarged, so as to form a 

 cushion-like disk, terminating above the base of the four taller 

 stamens. Within these were four supernumerary stamens of the 

 same height, being closely adpressed to the ovary. One or more 

 were often adherent to the latter, which was then open, and so ex- 

 posed the more or less rudimentary ovules. Hence the monstrosity 

 was a true case of pleiotaxy. 



TJie Stwpleford Pedigree Roses.— Mr. Bennett attended the com- 

 mittee, and showed specimens of his hybridised Tea Roses 

 covered with their fruits. Mr. Bennett explained his method of 

 hybridisation by removing the stamens from the flowers of various 

 Tea Roses grown under glass, and applying to the pistils the 

 pollen of various hybrid Perpetuals. The results were not only 

 interesting from a scientific point of view, but practically valuable 

 in the production of what is virtually a new race of Roses of great 

 beauty and vigorous habit. The seedlings come up earlier if taken 

 from the fruits before the latter are quite ripe and sown imme- 

 diately. Dr. Denny stated that he had observed the same thing in 

 hybridising Pelargoniums, and Mr. Wilson also confirmed it in the 

 case of Lilies, and called attention to the experiments of Mr. Ward 

 of Ipswich, who hybridised hybrid perpetual* in a similar manner 

 to that followed by Mr. Bennett in the case of Tea Roses, 



