HARDY GLADIOLU! 



553 



worked diligently, and the gorgeous things we are now accus- 

 tomed to see exhibited by the lucky raisers of Gladioli cause us 

 to lose sight of the first origin whence they have arisen. 



Indeed, a short time after G. gandavensis had been dis- 

 tributed in gardens, it was reported that Mr. Cole, gardener to 

 •T. \Yillmore, Esq., of Oxford, had crossed this variety with a 

 pink-flowered species, G. floribundus, and had raised three 

 seedling plants, one of which, named G. Wilhnoreanus, had white 

 flowers with pink stripes, and was described and figured in 1850 

 in the Gardeners' Magazine of Botany. Nearly at the same 

 date M. Souchet, of Fontainebleau, was undertaking similar 

 trials. During the summer of 1852 were to be seen in his gardens 

 some beds of seedling Gladioli in full bloom. They were raised 

 from an artificial cross, viz. G. gandavensis fertilised with the 

 pollen of G-. blandus and ramosus. This experiment had perfectly 

 succeeded, every intermediate shade of colour between white 

 with lemon tinges and the darkest purple-crimson having been 

 obtained; many plants showed large and well- expanded corollas, 

 and the influence of G. blandus and ramosus had imparted to the 

 offspring a much hardier constitution than was known in the 

 first Gandavensis. " M. Souchet's beautiful plants," it was stated 

 in the Bulletin of the Central Horticultural Society of France for 

 1853, " are as great an advance on G. gandavensis as it was 

 itself an improvement on G. i~>sittacinus, its mother." 



M. Souchet was not the only French grower who was in- 

 terested in hybridising the new Gladioli. At the same time M. 

 TrufYaut, of Versailles, M. Yerdier pere, of Ivry, near Paris, and 

 M. Courant, of Poissy, were renowned for the results they 

 obtained. 



As a matter of fact, all these so praised plants now seem to us 

 to be poor acquisitions in comparison with the beautiful new 

 hybrids which we are admiring every year ; but I thought it was 

 necessary to do justice here to those who first created the 

 garden Gladioli, and marked out for their successors a way so 

 easy to follow. 



Another voice will have more authority than mine in pointing 

 out the improvements which skilful growers have little by little 

 made in this group, and the latest results which both English 

 and French specialists have in store for the numerous lovers of 

 this beautiful sort. I will not dwell any more upon it, but will 



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