VERBENAS— TACSONIAS. 
313 
acquainted with the numerous varieties of 
any tribe of plants, would detect in all we 
have seen certain sorts which are not worth 
the room they occupy if they were to be had 
gratis, and certainly nothing requires more 
caution than the purchase of a collection. 
It is not of half so much consequence to 
miss a good one as it is to get a bad one ; 
the absence of one good flower from a col- 
lection of good ones only lasts for a season, 
and when we get it the following year it is 
cheaper ; but the purchase of a bad one is a 
total loss of all we pay for it, and the room and 
trouble we bestow on it. But some may be 
inclined to ask why bad flowers should be 
recommended ? how any body can be inter- 
ested in so doing ? what is to be got by 
deceiving the young florists ? All these ques- 
tions are natural, but easily answered. A new 
thing that is either puffed by publications or 
talked about much, is immediately purchased 
by the trade, because there is a demand for 
new things, and nobody in business likes to 
be without it. Ask twenty dealers for a list 
of good things, and they will all include in 
their list a thing that they have brought into 
stock and not sold out, even before they know 
any thing of its merits but what they have 
heard. What dependence then can there be 
on such lists ? Again, there are many per- 
sons who are not judges of the properties of 
flowers, or who will not take the trouble to 
study them, and these are taken by the colour 
or some peculiarity of a variety, and overlook 
great defects — defects that would throw a 
stand, or collection, or single flower, in a class 
down below the rest, or clear out of the com- 
petition. In short, disguise it as we may, 
very few persons have the capacity to fairly 
estimate the rank in which a flower should be 
placed, and the decisions at public shows 
frequently belie all the rules of judging, some- 
times from the ignorance, sometimes from the 
prejudice, and not unfrequently from the un- 
fair intentions of some one censor, who in- 
fluences the rest. We have observed now and 
then some busybody collecting among a lot 
of amateurs and dealers lists of the best 
flowers. Having no real judgment of their 
own, they want the collective wisdom of others, 
and the lists so collected are made the ground- 
work of what is called information, which 
however misleads generally all who depend 
on it. Hence the information is not worth 
having, if it be not directly mischievous. To 
make lists of flowers really useful, they must 
emanate from some one of known sound judg- 
ment, who has no direct interest in highly 
colouring anything, who has something like a 
character and credit as a florist to lose, and is 
sufficiently known to the world of flowers to 
influence the many in behalf of his authority. 
We regard many would-be teachers with great 
suspicion, if not with a less complimentary 
feeling. 
BEDDING VERBENAS. 
The only sorts that are really proper for 
bedding out when any figure is to be retained, 
are the dwarf creeping sorts, like V. Melindres; 
and the Avay to get these in perfection is to 
watch their growth, and peg down the shoots 
exactly where you want them, directing them 
in the best way to fill up their allotted place. 
They should be planted about a foot apart, 
and quite that distance from the edge of the 
bed ; the whole of the branches or shoots of 
those plants nearest the edge should be directed 
towards the edge, and the next row should be 
directed towards the first row ; as soon as any 
of the shoots reach the limit of their intended 
destination, pinch off the ends, and they soon 
put forth side-shoots, which have also to be 
directed the way they are most wanted. There 
will be no difficulty in making them fill up 
their allotted space, and as soon as they get 
to the edge of the bed on either side, they 
must be nipped off, because on no account 
must they run over. When the bed is entirely 
filled up or covered, let the shoots spread 
about over one another ; confine them merely 
within these bounds, and they will present a 
mass of blooms the exact form of the bed, and 
as full of colour as a carpet ; one foot apart 
will be found abundant for covering very 
quickly, and eighteen inches apart will only 
want a fortnight longer to fill up, for when 
the plants have once taken hold and begun 
to grow, they make rapid strides, and when 
once_ stopped by pinching off the ends, the 
side-shoots grow as fast as the main branch 
did. Unless great care is taken almost daily 
to pinch off the ends that obtrude, they will 
soon form themselves over the box or grass 
edging, so as to destroy the outline of the 
figure and the plants which form the edging, 
and the neglect of a few days would do all the 
mischief. You may thin out the shoots that 
have done blooming, if there be any. 
THE TACSONIAS. 
The Tacsonias were originally recognised 
as Passion-flowers ; the splitting of old families 
into various branches, changed Passijlorape- 
duncularis into Tacsonia peduncularis, while 
one introduced in 1828, by Mrs. Maryatt, was 
called T. pinnatistipula. This, and another 
more recently imported, called T. molUssima, 
are handsome creeping plants with pink blos- 
soms, like those of a passion-flower, only having 
along slender cylindrical tube. Tacsonia pin- 
