PLORA AND SYLVA 
ten or twelve days however, but about half 
that time. With me also they come into 
flower quite a month sooner than those of /. 
De/avayi. I fear we must give up hoping to 
see the flower of /. compacta as I hear from 
the partner of the late Dr. Kegel in St. Peters- 
burg that, though he has grown it for many 
years he has only once seen it flower, in 1 895. 
When figured in Gartenjiora for September 
1900, Dr. Kegel pronounced it to be a form 
of grandijiora and not a true species. I am 
pleased to read such a good account of /. sin- 
ensis^ as I have seedlings of it up and had 
heard that it was worthless. I have also a 
seedling of a cross between 7. Dc/avayi 2.r\dL I. 
Fargt'si, which should be good. Though about 
I 3 seedlings came up only one of them had 
green leaves, all the others having their seed- 
leaves a yellowish-white devoid of chloro- 
phyll or plant life-blood, and therefore could 
not live. Why such seeds should come up at 
all is a puzzle and ought to be studied by our 
scientists. My German friend who effected 
the cross and sent me the seed, when I reported 
the poor result wrote me that he had sown 
300 seeds and only got 5 green-leaved seed- 
lings. I do not consider either 7. O/gc? or 
variabilis to be worth growing, having flow- 
ered and discarded them both many years ago; 
their flowers are small and dull-coloured, and 
never open more than one at a time, no matter 
how many there may be on the flower-stem. 
I wish however that I could get seed of 7. 
Bcrcsoivski^Bonvaloti ov lutCii. I see Mr. Wilson 
has sent Veitch a new Incarvillea, so hope that 
it may be one of these. I have now the im- 
proved form of the golden-flowered TreePa^ony 
from China — Pceonia lutea superba — coming 
nicely into flower, when I hope to compare 
it with the original form. 
W. E. GUMBLETON. 
Meconopsis BELLA. — Our readers will be inter- 
ested to learn that that clever grower of rare 
plants, Herr Max Leichtlin of Baden-Baden, 
has so far succeeded with this lovely but 
rebellious little plant of the Himalayan mist- 
zone, that it is now coming into flower 
in his garden. We hope to secure a photo- 
graph or drawing of the plant while at its 
best, and some account from Herr Leichtlin 
of how he has won this cultural triumph. 
MESEMBRYANTHEMUMS. 
Such uncertainty exists in the names of 
Mesembryanthemums, that one writes 
of them with diffidence. In many cases 
the pubHshed descriptions of species are 
quite unhke the plants grown under the 
same names in the best collections in the 
British Isles. The only method by which 
one can hope to arrive at correctness of 
name is by sending flowers to Kew, a 
step that well repays the slight trouble 
involved. M. edule^ the plant of our 
engraving, known at the Cape as the 
Hottentot Fig, is the commonest kind 
in this country and grows rampantly in 
the south-west. In the Isles of Scilly 
it is a veritable weed, and at Newlyn 
Harbour spreads a veil of foliage over a 
wall lapped at its foot by the salt water. 
Another plant, of which a small portion 
is shown, grows upon a rocky ledge just 
outside the mouth of the River Dart, 
covering 1 8 yards in length and with a 
breadth of 14 feet at its widest part. On 
the right it overhangs a deep fissure filled 
by the tide at high-water, while in front, 
at a distance of about 4 yards, the cliff 
falls sheer to the sea 30 feet beneath. 
During the many years that I have known 
it, this example has never bloomed with 
anything approaching the profusion of 
flower displayed in the summer of 1 904, 
indeed, even in its native haunts in South 
Africa, I have never met with it in such 
a fine condition. 
Aspeciesbearingfarhandsomerflow- 
ers than M. edule is M. acinaciforme . 
This has deep rose-coloured blossoms 
fully 4 inches across, and does fairly 
well at Kingswear, S. Devon, though 
it does not bloom every year. Its foliage 
