REPORT OF THE CHISWICK BOARD OF DIRECTION. 161 
Floral Committee distributed twenty-nine Certificates. The 
salmon-coloured and white-flowered varieties of Pelargoniums not 
being found suitable for open-air culture, but being highly deco- 
rative as cool greenhouse plants, the Committee in 1872 desired 
that a trial of these as pot-plants should be made, and 54 varieties 
were thus grown, with the result that one was specially certificated, 
and a selection of the most useful of the remainder approved and 
recommended for indoor decorative purposes. In the case of 
Fuchsias 182 varieties were grown, and seventeen of these were 
certificated as desirable decorative sorts ; while of Pentstemons and 
Phloxes large collections were planted out, and four of the former 
and seven of the latter were selected for Certificates. The report 
on these collections will be found in the number of the Journal 
just issued. 
The collection of Hardy Herbaceous Perennials has been enriched 
during the season by the presentation of 300 species and varieties 
from the Eoyal Gardens, Kew ; and of numerous species of Aster 
from the Floral Director. Of these latter plants it was hoped that 
a large collection might be got together, with a view to their 
examination by the Professor of Botany ; and contributions for this 
purpose will still be gladly received by the Gardener-in-chief. 
A very handsome new Fern, which sprang up in one of the 
propagating houses a year or two since, and which is now a well- 
developed specimen, has been described and figured during the 
past year in the Journal, under the name of Pteris serrulato- 
tremula. It is very remarkable that this plant, supposed from its 
compound appearance to be a hybrid between P. tremula and P. 
serrulata^ though forming spores in abundance, cannot, so far as 
yet experienced, be increased by this means, the typical P. 
tremula only being produced from them. It is probably, there- 
fore, after all, only a spore-sport of this well-known plant. 
Of other matters which have come before them, the Directors 
think it only right to mention that the Gardener-in- chief has 
reported most favourably to them of the action of a new "Wrought- 
Iron Boiler erected by Messrs. T. Green & Son, which has done 
its work most efficiently and economically ; and they are informed 
that a similar boiler is now most satisfactorily heating the Con- 
servatory at Kensington. 
Professor Thiselton Dyer's Lectures to the young gardeners at 
Chiswick, on Elementary matters of Science bearing upon Horti- 
culture, and whicb were briefly referred to in the Report of 
1873, were listened to with attention and advantage by the young 
