16 
NEW PLANTS. 
have a creamy white ground interspersed with, green, others are blotched with red, 
and in fact it is hardly possible at present to say what strange forms and colours they 
will present ; but I think enough is seen to enable one to say that they will indeed 
prove one of the most decided acquisitions in ornamental-foliaged stove plants that 
wo have had for some years. When I add that the entire stock of many of the most 
prominent and beautiful of the preceding plants are exclusively in Mr. Bull’s pos- 
session, those interested in such things (and who are not '() can form some idea of the 
treat in store for them by a visit to his Establishment. 
“ And so must end my notes. Will any one wonder after seeing all this, and 
having the words ‘ new,’ ‘ novelties,’ &c., ringing in my ears, that when I ‘ turned 
in ’ for the night my dreams should have been coloured by what I saw — that I 
fancied Mr. Bull was clipping off the few hairs I had left in my rapidly decreasing 
locks, and was inserting them in thumb-pots, and dosing them with ‘thine inimitable 
oil of Macassar,’ as an entirely new sort— that my digits were expanding into creep- 
ing rhizomes, while all over mo there was a general sprouting process going on 
which threatened to e.xhaust all the tissues of my poor body — and that an admiring 
bevy of botanists were minutely surveying my poor self, and disputing as to what 
new genus they should ascribe me to. Unhappily I was not in my own home, so 
that I had no friendly nudge to startle me out of my visions by ‘ My dear you must 
have eaten something that disagreed with you ; ’ so that it went on until I was 
heartily glad to awake and find, as old John Bunyan has it, ‘ Behold it was all a 
dream.’ -D., Seal." 
Extract from Gardeners' Chronicle, May 6th, 1865, page 415. 
“ Mr. Bull’s Nursery, Chelsea.. — Straying in here a few weeks since, on the 
look-out for winter flowers and charms, I soon found myself absorbed in the contem- 
plation of new plants. To begin with the stoves. Here I found a little plant, 
itself as hardy as 'Water-cross, which somewhere or other had taken a freak and 
become distinctly variegated, and by somebody or other had been sent to Chelsea, to 
bo steamed and roasted at such a rate, for the purposes of propagation, as never 
before could have happened to our little friend since those days, ages ago, when the 
great flood of heat came down, softening and genialising our then iee-bound latitudes, 
and driving all tiny subjects that liked to take it ‘ coolly ’ to the hill and mountain 
tops. The plant is the popular spring flower Aubretia purpurea, with a distinct 
marginal variegation, which is thoroughly constant in the plants, whether in the stoves, 
greenhouses, or cold pits. Only fancy what a charming edging this will make, more 
particularly when the numerous blue flowers are elevated above the half-whitened 
compact foliage. The Cruciforaj have afforded us some capital variegated and 
edging plants, but in most cases the colour of the flowers comes much too near that 
of the variegation — here we have a ‘ true blue ’ for a contrast. As far as I could 
judge, it is likely to be most useful and desirable for all gardens. 
“ One might think that it is almost time for this comparatively insignificant little 
planet of ours to be exhausted of startling novelties for the plant-house, so much has 
it been ransacked of late ; and when one does meet with a very ‘ distinguished party’ 
like the Cyanophyllum or Sphajrogyno, a shabby little suspicion will sometimes 
