118 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



guished by names denoting peculiarity of form and colours ; thus 

 such appellations as "the starry purple," " the quilled pink," "the 

 expanded purple," " the clustered yellow," were deemed sufficient. 

 The Chrysanthemum fancier, in the days of the " First gentleman 

 of Europe," found it impossible to adopt translations of the ori- 

 ginal Chinese names, as they were often too quaint and difficult. 

 We need only cite a few examples for our purpose, as "dragon's 

 brains," " yellow Buddha's head," "full heaven of stars," and 

 " the heavenly interview " Chrysanthemum, the latter being evi- 

 dently a progenitor of some of our tall-growing varieties, like 

 Mme. Clemence Audiguier. 



After a splendid exhibition of Chrysanthemums in the Chis- 

 wick Gardens, where upwards of 700 plants in full bloom were 

 shown, much interest appears to have resulted. The Society, 

 desirous of extending the culture of the now favourite flower, 

 distributed plants and cuttings among the nurserymen living 

 in the vicinity of the metropolis, and thus the Chrysanthemum 

 became speedily spread abroad. In a short time after, complaints 

 seem to have been prevalent as to the impossibility of propagating 

 the flower by seed. Indeed, the ripening of seed has, owing to 

 climatic influences, always been a subject of deep regret to the 

 English enthusiast, and the difficulties are not likely, perhaps, 

 to be lessened. The first efforts in Europe were purely acci- 

 dental. In 1826 M. Bernet, a retired lieutenant in the French 

 infantry, who lived at Toulouse, discovered on some plants of his 

 growing that the withered flowers bore seeds. These he sowed 

 in the following year, and was rewarded for his labours by the 

 addition of some new varieties to his then limited collection. 

 M. Bernet continued the work for many years, and to this pre- 

 sent day the amateurs of Toulouse regard him as the father of the 

 Chrysanthemum in France, and in the hall of the local horti- 

 cultural society a large oil-painting of the retired soldier is hung 

 in grateful admiration. 



In England we were not long behind the French. Mr. Isaac 

 Wheeler, of Oxford, raised a few seedlings in 1832, and exhibited 

 them at a meeting of this Society in December of that year. He 

 received in recognition of his flowers, which were poor insignifi- 

 cant things compared with those we see to-day, a Silver Bank- 

 sian Medal. A little later Mr. Short and Mr. Freestone in 

 Norfolk devoted attention to this interesting method of cultiva- 



