•282 JorKyAL of the eoy.il hoeticultueal society. 
Irish Yew thev are in eight ranks : but in the Common Yew. instead of 
assuming the distichous type, the leaves are simply twisted at the base so 
as to make them all lie flat in the same horizontal plane, thereby imitating 
the true distichous arrangement. 
AxGEiCUM HuMBLOTii. — This Orchid from Madagascar has pro- 
duced a new variety, exhibited by Mr. Sander, called maximum, remarkable 
for its broad labellum. The genus contains the species sesquipedale, 
remarkable for the extraordinary length of the spur, which is usually 
upwards of a foot in length, though perhaps not reaching a foot and a 
half," as the specific name imphes. When Mr. Darwin examined it in 
reference to the insect fertilisation of Orchids, he said there must be some 
moth with a proboscis of corresponding length. This has since then been 
found. 
Chrysanthemum Flowers. — A small yellow-flowered variety was 
compared with one having a very large white flower. Mr. Henslow 
observed that this plant appears capable of acquiring a far larger flower 
when compared with the original wild type— about the size of a shilling — 
than any other garden plant. Though it is true that the enormous size is 
obtained by removing all the other flower buds from the stem which 
bears it, yet in Tulips, for example, the bulbs bear only one flower, but 
this plant has never acquired a proportionally large flower when compared 
with that of wild Tuhps. 
Salsify. — Large roots of this plant were exhibited. It is a native of 
Greece, Italy, and Algeria, but is often naturaKsed. It bears large purple 
flowers. Like our common species, the yellow- flowered Goat's-beard, it 
has a feathery or " plumose pappus, not a ''pilose" or one of simple 
hairs as in the Dandehon. It was more cultivated a century or two ago 
than at the present time. It is sometimes confounded with Scorzonera 
(S. hispanica), ^^Aoh the root resembles: but this latter has a brown 
skin, which gives the nsime ecorce noire in French and scorzonera in 
Spain. It is common in Spain. South Fi-ance, and Germany to the 
Caucasus. It has been cultivated for about two hundred years. 
