30 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



such a promising start, but the time is bound to come when their 

 quiet beauty and Marathon-like lasting powers will be appreciated 

 by the flower-loving public. 



Freesias. 



South Africa is the home of the Freesia. Thence they have come 

 at different times, beginning probably in the first decade of the nine- 

 teenth century with refracta and ending in 1898, when Armstrongii 

 was brought over by the man who found it at Humansdorp and a 

 single bulb given to Kew. It is the advent of this last arrival that has 

 made possible the wonderful developments that are now taking place. 

 Mr. William Watson, into whose hands the bulb was given, and 

 who was the first to flower the variety in England, describes its 

 colour as a rich rosy pink, and so I can only suppose that a writer 

 in the Gardeners' Magazine was wrong when in describing the self- 

 same plant he labels it " purplish." 



Taking my cue from the ancient habit of giving to plants popular 

 names suggested by some marked characteristic or some fabled or 

 real use, such as ' Bear's Ears,' ' Eye-bright,' and ' Betty-go-to-bed- 

 at-noon,' in the case of the Freesia I hazard the suggestion of 'Wait- 

 and-see ' flower as an appropriate nickname for this tantalizing plant. 

 The why and the wherefore of this will be made clear later on. We 

 must first of all consider very shortly its nomenclature and its history. 



The Freesia, in the various names by which it has been known 

 in Europe, calls to our mind the words and the moral of an old nursery 

 rhyme : 



Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, and Bess — 

 They all went together to seek a bird's nest. 

 They found a bird's nest with five eggs in : 

 They all took one and left four in. 



First the Freesia was ' Gladiolus.' As Gladiolus refr actus and G. 

 xanthospilus it is figured in Redoute's " Les Liliacees." Then it 

 became ' Tritonia,' and as Tritonia refracta it appeared as the subject 

 of plate No. 135 of the Botanical Register, on August 1, 1816. Finally, 

 in the Botanical Cabinet of 1830, it assumes its present name of Freesia, 

 and a picture is given of Freesia odorata, which was cultivated, the 

 note says, outside in a frost-proof border. In " Linnaga " (1865-1866) 

 F. W. Klatt, as it were, clenched this last name, and so it will 

 remain until some enterprising botanist finds out something fresh 

 about it and suggests another. Hence, as " Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy; 

 and Bess " were one in the nursery rhyme, so are Gladiolus, Tritonia; 

 and Freesia in the case of our plant. 



The next question to be asked is, How many species are there ? 

 In different books we find descriptions or references to refracta, 

 refracta alba, xanthospila, aurea, odorata, Leichtlinii, Leichtlinii major] 

 and Armstrongii. If we consult Nicholson, Bailey, and garden papers 

 like The Garden and Gardeners Chronicle, we become at once aware 

 that there has existed considerable diversity of opinion as to which 



