50 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
y. Penrhosiensis. — This plant is a cross be- 
tween pauciflora and Ghiesbreghtiana and shows 
a blending of their good qualities. It is more 
reliable and earlier in flower than pauciflora^ 
and free from its tendency to loss of leaf. Its 
habit is more drooping, with larger leaves and 
deeper red flowers, appearing from October 
and lasting long in a greenhouse temperature. 
Its flowers are larger, more abundant, and use- 
ful for cutting, the sprays showing well in 
artificial light. As it needs a long season of 
growth, the cuttings are best made in summer 
and repotted in early spring for flowering the 
following autumn. Perhaps still best known 
by its old name, Libo?jia Penrhosiensis. 
A second hybrid between J. Ghiesbreghtiana 
and y. paucijiora^ but raised in another garden 
and quite different from Libonia Penrhosiensis., is 
known as x Sericobonia ignea. It is a pretty little 
greenhouse shrub of 2 to 3 feet, with slender, 
erect stems, swollen and reddish at the joints, 
and long leaves of deep glossy green. The 
clusters of brilliant orange-red flowers spring 
from the leaf-axils, opening in November and 
December, and lasting several weeks in full 
beauty. Being freely produced, their colour 
is good for rooms in the dull season, and the 
long light stems are pretty for cutting. It has 
never been a common plant, but is well worth 
growing. 
y. Pohliana. — A very handsome plant, some- 
times classed as a variety of yusticia fnagnijica, 
but distinct in its more robust and leafy habit 
and in the intense colour of its flowers. Its 
beauty may be gathered from our engraving, 
showing the fine flower-spike carried upon 
angular stems of 2 to 3 feet, with handsome 
leaves of 6 inches, often prettily tinged with 
purple. It flowers freely in autumn and winter 
and is one of the most useful and easily grown 
of the group. A variety known as velutina 
carries soft downy leaves and flowers of a pretty 
pale rose ; while velutina nana is a dwarf form 
with all the merits of its parent, and much 
grown in small pots for decoration. 
y. sericea. — A distinct and beautiful plant 
from Peru, covered with silky white hairs and 
bearing spikes of hairy red flowers. Introduced 
early in the last century, it is perhaps not now 
in cultivation. 
y. suberecta. — A new species lately raised in 
France from seed brought from Uruguay by 
M. Andre. It is a greenhouse perennial herb, 
with trailing stems rising to flower, and covered 
with a white silky coating of fine appearance. 
The leaves are rounded, thick, upon very short 
stalks, and covered with the same pale hairs. 
The flower-stems rise abruptly, bearing narrow 
tubular flowers of pale orange-red, nearly closed 
at the mouth by dark anthers, and gathered into 
clusters of 1 2 to 15 blooms. These showy 
flowers are in fine contrast with the spreading 
carpet of pale stems and foliage, and the plant 
is sufficiently hardy for use in the open during 
summer in the same way as for Gnaphalium 
lanatum, which it somewhat resembles. As the 
flowers appear somewhat late,it is a gain to grow 
it in pots, for removal to the greenhouse on 
the approach of bad weather. B. 
THE KENTUCKY YELLOW- 
WOOD. 
We have received several letters as to exist- 
ing trees of this kind, and they prove that the 
fine old trees to be seen here and there, some- 
times quite as large as in Kentucky, are fast 
dying out. Of the group at Highclere Castle 
only one now remains, and that tree fast going. 
The fine tree at Syon House is still the largest 
in England, with a height of 75 feet, a trunk 
measurement of 6|- feet, and a spread of 60 feet. 
But it is also in decay, and become so hollow 
in the centre as to need support. At Kew, only 
one of the trees existing twenty years ago is 
now alive, standing by itself, near the Director's 
office. It is in fair health, and though only 
about 30 feet high has a girth of more than 
5 feet and a spread of 40 feet. The tree with 
the largest stem is at Surrenden Park in Kent, 
where a tree 50 feet high measures 8^ feet 
round the trunk ; of late years it has suffered 
much from storms, one of which carried away 
its head, though it is still beautiful in autumn 
and flowered a little this year. Of a tree at 
Knap Hill Nursery Mr. Waterer sends an 
interesting note. This old tree is 40 feet high 
and about the same in spread of limb, while 
the trunk measures 8 feet at 3 feet from the 
ground. Mr. Waterer adds that it is always 
fine in the autumn, and especially so this year. 
It has flowered at intervals, but only in irre- 
gular patches and upon the weaker side-shoots. 
