190 



JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I expected to note some interesting wild plants on the rocky island of 

 St. Michael's Mount, to which it was stated that the public were admitted 

 when accompanied by guides employed by the owner. However, such 

 statements proved illusory, and the day I gave up for this quest was 

 wasted ; for, having waited over an hour for the privilege of landing, the 

 guide said nothing could be seen but a church ; on the way to which 

 I noted Arum italicum and Narcissus hiflorus (the latter in flower), 

 besides a number of garden narcissi " naturalised " in the grass. 



In the Morrab Gardens, Penzance, many of our summer bedding 

 plants remain out all the winter, such as pelargoniums, marguerites, 

 cannas, &c. Yet the climate is too wet for pelargoniums to flourish. 

 A narrow-leaved Agapanthus {A. u. Mooreanus ?) and an Hedychium 

 {H. Gardnerianum ?) are also hardy, but not in flower during my visit. 

 These gardens have to contend against a poor soil, besides other draw- 

 backs. 



I did not visit any nursery gardens during my stay in the county. 



What struck me about such gardens as Carclew and Trewidden was 

 not so much any spectacular or planned effect as the way in which 

 sheltered nooks and glades in the surrounding woodlands had been used 

 for naturalising all kinds of plants, shrubs, and trees. Such gardens 

 as these have surely been laid out by lovers of plants, not by showmen. 

 Yet the impression such gardens give is the more pleasing, because 

 their beauty is not in any way curtailed by formality. I do not hold 

 that the formal garden should necessarily be banished from its proper 

 position by the house, but this is not the real garden ; rather is it a 

 concession to those who are not devotees. 



Climate. 



At Trewidden, which cannot be more than 200-300 feet above 

 Penzance, some conifers (especially species of Picea and of Abies) lose 

 their leaders and their beauty of contour through some cause. I was in- 

 formed that frosts occur almost yearly in May at this altitude above the 

 sea, although the absolute littoral is exempt. I am doubtful whether this 

 is the real cause of the damage, because such frosts, if they do occur, 

 must be very slight. I noted that Tropceohom majus had wintered out 

 practically unharmed with no more protection than the thin partition- 

 wall up which it had rambled, and that some of these plants were fully 

 two years old : hence it is evident that this period at least had passed 

 with not more than one degree of frost at the outside. 



I also noted that the Coniferae about Penzance were not appreciably 

 more forward for the time of year than they are in the London district. 

 The earliest of them were only just opening their leaf -buds on April 20. 

 Hence the mildness of the climate does not appear to cause precocious 

 growth in the Conifers, and consequent damage by frosts which would 

 be otherwise innocuous. I incline to trace this damage to the effects 

 of the salt-laden air on the young foliage of some trees. 



All plants mentioned in these notes were planted out in the open 

 ground, except where specially noted as under glass or on walls. 



