744 



BUDS, BLOSSOMS, FRUITS. 



Some Fine New Flowers. — Among the beautiful new 

 chrysanthemums are the Japanese Vailed Prophet (fig. i), 

 with many large, white, tubular rays six inches long, 

 having pale yellow, canoe-shaped openings at the tips ; 

 and Mrs. A. Blanc (fig. 2), pink, with the reverse of the 

 strap-rays, which turn over prettily in the center, ivory- 

 white ; the flower is eight inches across. Queen Isabella 

 (fig. 3) is a pure white globular flower, and the rose- 



colored, criss-cross 



(fig. 4) has strap-rays 

 serrated at the tips, 

 crossing each other in 

 all directions. ' ' Au- 

 tumn Master" (fig. 6. p 

 746) has deep crimson- 

 ribbed strap-rays with 

 a yellow reverse. It 

 IS grown in San Fran- 

 cisco, by Joshikii, who 

 shows also fine varie- 

 ties of dwarf pasonies. 

 The orchids, new 



Fig. 2.— Mrs. A. Blanc. 

 and old, never show to better advantage 

 than when displayed as if growing upon 

 the trunk of a tree-fern. One yellow Odon- 

 loglossum grandis that I saw lately had 

 bars of deep chocolate color across its se- 

 pals, and upon one panicle there were five 

 blossoms, each six inches across from the tip 

 of the dorsal sepal to that of either of the lat- 

 eral ones. One leaf five inches long rose from 

 the pseudo-bulb. In the same coolhouse grew 

 a pure white brassavola with yellow column, 

 yellow tips of petals and sepals, and linear, 

 reed-like leaves, half white. Stanhofca ocu- 

 lala sends its blossoming shoots straight down 

 through its log-cabin floor, so that the won- 

 derful dull yellow flowers hang beneath the 

 channeled pseudo - bulbs and broad, bright 

 green leaves. The flowers are triangular in 

 shape and three or four inches across. They 

 are curiously waved, fluted and twisted, and 

 their coloring, pure gold, red and salmon, is strange and 

 beautiful. Cattleya Eldorado is rose pink, with 

 gold and purple tips. Oncidiinn incurvum has greenish 

 white petals a foot in length. 



Lapaffcria alba (fig. 5) hang its large, white lily-bells 

 in wreaths upon conservatory walls here in California 

 during September. It would probably thrive outdoors, 

 climbing over shrubs and piazzas in southern California 

 and other southern states, and can be easily propagated 

 by layers. It needs a deal of earth-room and careful 

 drainage. The flowers are or 3 inches long, with six 

 petals, six stamens and one pistil, and hang closely to- 

 gether with a pretty three-veined leaf for company to 

 each one, as it swings The deep crimson L rosea is 

 similar, but I do not like it so' well ; the mottled and 

 spotted varieties, I think, should not be allowed to bloom 

 at all. 



My own favorite shrub, Eugenia myrlifolia, is two 

 feet high, and delights me every year through August, 

 September and October with an abundance of delicate 

 white, faintly sweet-scented tubular flowers, the softly- 

 ciliate centers tinged with mauve. It lives out-doors all 

 the year here in San Francisco, retaining its profusion of 

 opposite myrtle-shaped leaves. The four stamens of the 

 flower are inserted on the corrolla, two of them near the 

 lip-dimples, the others 

 with the pistils on fila- 

 ments half an inch 

 long, on the tiny sac- 

 cate spur at the top 

 of the ovary. — K. P. 

 S. Boyd, California. 



Winter Gardens 

 for the South. — 

 There is much yet to 

 be learned in regard 

 to floriculture in this 

 peculiar climate, a sort 

 of compromise be- 

 tween north and 

 south. All winter bat- 

 tle is waged between 

 the 'two, with a gen- 

 eral advantage for the 

 south ; but now and 

 then we have a sharp 

 reminder that there is 

 very cold weather not 

 far north of us. It 

 seems to me that in winter there is 

 much to be done here in the line of 

 conservatory work in houses with no 

 artificial heat except that which the 

 ives us. I think that our most 

 enjoyable season by far would be 

 winter gardening in such a struc- 

 ture, when all the plants would be 

 set in beds with not a flower-pot in 

 sight. There is a long list of plants 

 that would give us a profusion of bloom here in such a 

 structure. True, we usually have some flowers outside 

 all winter^ but there are times when the north is in the 

 ascendency, and even our violets are spoiled by frosts, 



-Vailed Prophet. 



