500 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



stalks bear a few flowers, which would be large- sized were the 

 segments fully expanded instead of being reflexed. As in 

 G. piLrpureo-auratus, the flowers are arched at a short distance 

 from their insertion, and, unfortunately, bent towards the ground. 

 The colour is a pale scarlet, while the throat and the three lower 

 segments are profusely covered with white and pink dots. This 

 plant rarely produces fine specimens in our country, although it 

 is quite hardy without any shelter ; and everybody knows that 

 winters in the north-east of France are peculiarly severe. 



Amateurs were not long in appreciating the interest of cross- 

 ing G. Saundersii with the beautiful garden hybrids, and the 

 first such attempt appears to have been made by M. Max Leichtlin, 

 of Baden-Baden. This amateur nurseryman published in 1882 

 the results he had obtained by crossing some varieties of Ganda- 

 vensis with the new species. Its influence was made manifest 

 by a considerable increase in the size of the blooms. M. 

 Leichtlin spoke of some of his hybrids measuring as much as 

 4 inches across, and even more, and producing a large variety 

 of shades. 



Apparently Max Leichtlin did not make so much of his dis- 

 covery as one might have supposed he would have done ; his 

 collection was scarcely distributed in the trade. I was told he 

 had offered the whole set of his novelties to the chief raisers of 

 Gladioli in England, and finally sold this stock to American 

 nurserymen. However, some years later, M. Godefroy-Lebeuf, 

 of Argenteuil, offered for sale some specimens of Max Leichtlin's 

 hybrids in unnamed sorts. "We secured some of these varieties 

 from M. Godefroy-Lebeuf, as well as another that Max Leichtlin 

 was kind enough to send us, for we were anxious to compare 

 them with the hybrids that we had just raised ourselves by 

 crossing our hardy spotted Gladioli with G. Siimdersii. We 

 ascertained that Max Leichtlin's were generally vigorous planes, 

 carrying tall and strong spikes with large flowers, and would 

 reward anyone who would try to improve them, both in colour 

 and substance. 



In the course of the summer of 1883 we made our first ex- 

 periments in crossing G. Saundersii in M. Victor Lemoine's 

 garden at Nancy. To secure the success of the operation this 

 species was grown under various conditions, some of the subjects 

 of the experiment having been planted in the open ground and 



