84 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
must be larger specimens in the South of Ireland, where the soil and 
climate are much better than ours up here. However, I will give 
its dimensions — viz. height 19 feet, and circumference about 45 feet, 
which is not bad for the northern Highlands ! As to the blooms on it, 
it never before had quite so many, and it would be all but an im- 
possibility to count them, as its branches are simply weighted down 
with the thousands of its crimson blooms. 
Its white-bloomed half-sister (T. dependens), which is said by 
some to be hardier than lanceolata, I find rather tender. I have seen 
it in bloom under glass in the South, and thought it very inferior 
in every way to the red one. 
And now for the pride of my heart, the Chilean Fire-bush ! I flatter 
myself that there are very few, if any, other good specimens of the 
Embothrium coccineum in Scotland besides my own ; at least, I have 
not come across them or heard of them. If anyone, else, in the north, 
south, east, or west of the country, does grow them well, it would 
interest me very much indeed to hear'how they managed to succeed 
with them. I find few trees easier to grow, and, by way of describing 
them, I may say that their branches are closely packed with what 
look rather like the most brilliant light-scarlet honeysuckle blooms. 
Very few, if any, trees that can be grown in Britain can in the least 
compare with the Embothriums, as I have seen them in Cornwall, 
30 feet high ; and, when the sun shines on them, it is a sight to rejoice 
the heart of any botanist. 
I often wonder how little is known by the general public about 
that hardy June-flowering bulb, Habranthus pratensis, and how seldom 
it is grown. I have a small clump of it with three fine flowering stalks, 
the blooms just expanding, and I mean to go in for it on a larger scale. 
It is just a kind of Amaryllis, and as lavish with its glittering scarlet 
as the Fire-bush. I know a place in Norfolk where they grow it on 
quite a large scale, but the public are somewhat slow in taking up a new 
thing, though, in truth, this is far from new. It is warranted hardy ! 
I am almost shy of starting on Rhododendrons again, but, in 
case any of my readers might think of ordering a few of the newer 
hybrids, I would strongly recommend the following eight, viz. : — 
' Alice/ ' F. B. Hayes,' ' Doncaster,' ' Corona,' ' Mrs. Stirling,' ' Lady 
Grey Egerton,' ' Bagshot Ruby,' ' Loder's White ' ; and of Rhododen- 
dron species, R. Ungerni is very good, with such beautiful foliage, 
and such grand trusses of lovely soft pink, and R. sutchuenense is a 
real treasure also. 
Before finishing with the June flowers, I cannot help just mentioning 
the great pleasure the giant flowers the lilies of the valley gave us this 
year. So often, when a wild flower is enlarged and improved by 
cultivation, it loses its original charm in some way, and often becomes 
more delicate and difficult to grow, but it is not so with the giant 
(Fortin's) Convallaria, as its beauty and fragrance seem only enhanced, 
and in the way of growth and spreading it almost equals the famous, 
or rather infamous, Bishop's weed ! 
