CRINUMS. 



71 



Another extreme form of the deciduous Crinums is C. cam- 

 panulatum, or aquaticum, a swamp plant, with cylindrical, very 

 deeply channelled leaves, and flowers very like those of the 

 flowering Bush (Butomus umbcllatus). I will now only notice 

 two interesting species with which I am only very imperfectly 

 acquainted : C. bracJiyncma, with small, beautiful, creamy 

 white flowers, with round petals and very short stamens — 

 the flowers are symmetrical, and it comes from India, so I 

 suppose that its affinities are with the columnar, star-shaped 

 group, although it has a round bulb — and G. Balfourii, which 

 has a round bulb and flaccid, shining, strap-shaped leaves, so that 

 no doubt its relations are African ; but it has pure white flowers, 

 and seems to differ rather widely from them. 



TEEES AND SHRUBS FOR LARGE TOWNS. 



By Dr. Maxwell T. Masteks, F.R.S. 

 [Bead October 28, 1890.] 



In introducing this subject the speaker briefly adverted to 

 the necessity for securing open spaces in our large towns, and to 

 the importance of planting from a sanitary as well as from an 

 aesthetic point of view. A thousand houses per month, it is 

 roughly estimated, are added to this overgrown metropolis of 

 London, every one of the five million inhabitants of which is con- 

 tinually polluting its atmosphere, to say nothing of the defile- 

 ment arising from factories and chimneys. The necessity of secur- 

 ing open spaces, and of planting them appropriately, is, therefore, 

 a matter of urgency. But these considerations, vast as their 

 importance is, were only incidentally adverted to, as they are for 

 the most part beyond the control of the gardener. The speaker 

 desired to confine his remarks almost entirely to matters in 

 which gardeners are directly concerned, and in which they can, 

 if permitted, render good service. 



The conditions unfavourable to the growth of trees and 

 shrubs in large towns, such as over-drained and otherwise 

 unsuitable soil, the relative absence of light, the mechanical 

 impurities of the atmosphere, which obstruct and cripple healthy 

 action, or chemical contaminations, such as acid vapours, which, 



