486 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The yellow-ground flowers, to which allusion has just been 

 made, must be taken as a race apart from all the rest. The 

 richly varied and picturesque character of these flowers makes 

 them general favourites, but coming originally from the South 

 of Europe they are impatient of our cold, wet summers. Dry 

 cold does not appear to affect them, and I winter them in the 

 same way as the rest of the stock. After a long winter, followed, 

 as in 1887, by a long, dry summer, many of them will grow like 

 willows, whether in pots or borders ; but when the summer season 

 is cold and wet for a couple of months together, as in 1888, 

 growth is either completely checked or rendered unsound for the 

 following season. 



Some sorts, like Bell Halliday and Edith, will go through it 

 quite unaffected, but, as a rule, the yellow flowers, as we have 

 hitherto known them, need some protection against long-con- 

 tinued wet weather, if vigorous and healthy growth is to be 

 maintained. 



Latterly, however, it is a pleasure to know that raisers have 

 succeeded in getting something like a new race of yellow-grounds 

 which will give us, along with higher quality, a greater adapt- 

 ability to our trying climate. 



Of the various sections of the flower, the Selfs are best known, 

 and are those which are most commonly seen in our gardens. 

 Besides the simple charm natural to the unicoloured flower, they 

 have also a capacity for broad effect which exhibits them to 

 great advantage when grown in large groups of a sort. Our 

 town gardens do not, as a rule, offer much scope for display of 

 this kind, but it might be tried in our parks with the happiest 

 results. 



The class flowers — the Bizarres and Flakes and Picotees — ■ 

 have hitherto remained but little known beyond the circle of the 

 florist, but the area of their cultivation appears to be widening 

 considerably of late, owing, without doubt, to the exhibitions of 

 our three leading societies. These are the florists' flowers, 

 representing as they do the highest qualities of the Carnation in 

 the direction of refinement, and of the seemingly little compa- 

 tible qualities of strongly marked individuality and wide variety. 

 One sometimes sees the statement made — only, of course, by 

 those without knowledge of the flowers — of Scarlet Flakes so 

 formal as to have every petal marked exactly alike. Such a 



