THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE, 
371 
HOETICULTUEAL AEFAIES. 
TIE Exhibitions of Chtivsanthemums liave tins year been of unusual 
excellence, and demonstrated in the most forcible manner the fact that 
these noble autumnal flowers are steadily gaining ground in tho esti- 
mation of the general public. Although the season has not been so 
favourable for the production of fine blooms as the growers would 
wish, the cut blooms were contributed to the various exhibitions in immense 
numbers, and in the finest possible condition. Mr. Adam Forsyth, of the Bruns- 
wick Nursery, Stoke Newington, has had, as usual, a splendid display of specimen 
and untrained plants, comprising examples of all the varieties included in the 
several classes at present in cultivation. Messrs. James Veitch & Sons, King’s 
Road, Chelsea, have also had a capital display of large flowered varieties in their 
large camellia house ; and Messrs. S. Dixon & Co., Hackney, have held in their 
nursery a very meritorious exhibition of untrained and trained specimens. 
The exhibition season was commenced by the exhibition of the Stokf, Newing- 
ton Society, in the Assembly Rooms, Church Street, on the 11th and 12th ult. 
Tills was followed by the exhibitions of the Royal Horticultukal, Lewisham, and 
Brixton Hill, Woolwich, North Western, South London, South Essex, 
Northampton, Peterborough, and Liverpool Societies, all of which were of the 
most meritorious character. 
Botany at the British Mu.seum. — Mr. W. Carruthers has just issued his 
official report for 1872 of “The Department of Botany in the British Museum.” 
The additions to the herbarium during the year are spoken of as large and im- 
portant, rendering more and more pressing the necessity of increasing accom- 
modation for the arranged herbaria. The species included under several of the 
natural orders, both in the general and in the British herbarium, have been entirely 
re-arranged during the year ; and much use has been made of the herbarium by 
botanists preparing monographs for a number of different publications. Numerous 
interesting additions have also been made to the structural series, both in the fruit, 
the fossil, and the gener.il collections. 
Potato Imports. — The Board of Trade’s statistics of imports tell us that in just 
the four months from the 31st of last December till the 30th of April, instead of 
importing foreign potatoes to the value of about £79,000, as we did in those four 
months last year, or to the value of less than £14,000, as we did in the first four 
months of 1871, we have actually spent £1,300,000 this year in the purchase of our 
neighbours’ potatoes. That we should have bought all these vegetables wherever 
we could get them, to supply our own deficiency, is not wonderful, for the English 
are accustomed to go to the foreign market with their money in their hands, and 
to obtain what they want if the article is to be had ; but that such an enormous 
increase of supply should be available on an unforeseen emergency, and that we 
should have taken them and have eaten them as we have, hardly knowing the dif- 
fer enc’, is surely remarkable, and a splendid testimony of the elasticity of our com- 
mercial system. 
Colour of Foliage. — The impurity of natural colours is strikingly illustrated 
by an observation recently communicated to me by Mr. Woodbury. On looking 
through a blue glass at green leaves in sunshine, he saw the superficially reflected 
light blue. The light, on the contrary, which came from the body of the leaves was 
crimson. On examination, I found that the glass employed in this observation 
transmitted both ends of the spectrum, the red as well as the blue, and that it 
quenched the middle. This furnished an easy explanation of the effect. In the 
delicate spring foliage the blue is for the most part absorbed, and a light, mainly 
yellowish green, but containing a considerable quantity of red, escapes from the 
leaves to the eye. On looking at such foliage through the violet glass, the green 
and the yellow are stopped, and the red alone reaches the eye. Thus regarded, 
therefore, the leaves appear like faintly blushing roses, and present a very beautiful 
appearance. With the blue ammonia-sulphate of copper, which transmits no red, 
this effect is not obtained. As the year advances, the crimson gradually hardens to 
a coppery red ; and in the dark green leaves of old ivy it is entirely absent. Per- 
mitting a concentrated beam of white light to fall upon fresh leaves in a dark room, 
the sudden change from green to red, and from red back to green, when the violet 
December. 
