80 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
what a gem it is, as it never fails, though it might not be quite hardy 
in a very severe climate. 
The two newer varieties of R. Nobleanum (viz. venustum and 
coccineum) are so well worth growing, coming in just when the original 
kind is about over, and they are quite distinct, for, instead of being 
red, the one is a beautiful light rose, and the other a deep crimson. 
I have also a Continental variety, which has for some years been much, 
used in the South for forcing, called ' Silberaad's Early,' starting 
pale rose and finishing up pure white, and it is quite successful, and 
very early out of doors here. I have also an arboreum full of bloom, 
whose name, alas, if it had any, I have lost, and the first of its blooms 
expanded about the 25th of March, and it has the rather unusual, 
but very useful, habit of flowering in the centre of the bush, instead 
of, in the ordinary way, on the outside tips, and thus it is protected 
from damage from frost or hail showers. Its flowers are a glorious 
crimson, in rosettes surrounded by the most beautiful long leaves ; so 
handsome are its leaves that it would be almost worth growing for its 
foliage alone. 
I came upon a new treasure in the way of a winter-flowerer, which 
to me gives it so much more value — viz. R. mucronulatum. It is, I 
am told, a southern and glorified form of R. dauricum, and I was much 
struck with it when I came across it blooming in the open at Kew in 
January, and certainly it was most striking ; and, though it is not 
easily got, I have managed to procure two plants of it ! 
I have also got two plants of R. moupinense, which is low-growing 
and white-flowered, and blooms also in mid-winter. 
April. 
What a miserable month April has been ! But, as there was no 
frost down here at sea-level, my plants flourished. 
I really thought it was never going to change for the better, and 
even one or two faint, half-hearted calls from the cuckoo brought 
no relief, till one day, about the 26th, a hoopoe suddenly appeared 
here, bringing fine weather with it from somewhere (probably Algeria 
or Egypt), and since then the weather of the remaining days of April 
has been quite perfect. Flowering bulbs, which do extra well with 
me in April, and which I seldom see elsewhere, except on a very 
small scale, are the Erythroniums or American dog-tooth violets. 
Here they come up from self-sown seed in masses, even in the gravel 
walks, and are ivory white, bright yellow, crimson, mauve, and pink ; 
they never fail, and are such a joy I I measured one to-day over 
eighteen inches high, with six big white blooms on the one stalk, and 
so large as to remind one of a miniature lily. And so are the big 
patches of the pale-blue Anemone nemorosa Robinsoniana, and another 
called ' Blue Bonnets,' which spread like weeds. 
April produced so many gorgeous Rhododendrons here, but only 
one of the hybrids (which we usually call Waterer's) expanded in 
