NEW FLOWERS AND PLANTS. 
107 
Lind and Turner's Double X will find them- 
selves a stand or two behind those who have 
these flowers ; they are both advances in the 
right direction. Before we conclude, we de- 
sire to impress upon the minds of the 
judges of the Horticultural and Botanical 
Societies to pay some attention to the real 
merits of novelties, and not fearfully mislead 
the inexperienced growers ; if they have any 
pride, they cannot look back upon some of 
their decisions without infinite pain. We can 
hardly imagine anything more galling to a 
high-minded man, or one who prides himself 
on doing justice, than to see the subjects 
which he has pronounced first-class, univer- 
sally rejected, the very first season, as 
worthless. They are paid for their judgment ; 
surely they ought to exercise it if they have 
any, or confess their deficiency, if they are 
not blind to it ; we are saying nothing now 
but that which an examination of the prize 
lists for the last three or four seasons, and 
noting the universal condemnation which 
some of the selected ones have met with, fully 
justifies us in saj'ing, and we entreat others to 
do as we have done, for they must come to 
the same conclusion. However, we are turn- 
ing over a new leaf in Floriculture, and we, 
having provided an unerring test,* shall be 
disappointed if we see the judges at great 
societies counteracting the march of improve- 
ment by awarding prizes to new subjects of 
little or no merit; we shall not hesitate to give 
our opinion on any subject that may be sent 
to us, and if it reach us on a Tuesday, we shall 
submit it to a higher authority than ours, the 
only authority that we will bow to if they 
happen to think differently. We shall be glad to 
see any new polyanthus, camellia, primula, or any 
other subject that the raiser or possessor wants 
an opinion of or desires to bring into notice. 
The .French florists have a great many 
fancy dahlias to come out this spring ; as 
usual, the great majority are good for nothing ; 
but when we recollect the grand conspicuous 
commanding variety, the Evipereur de Maroc 
of last year, we cannot deny that they raise 
some stars worth attention ; we consider 
that flower by far the most striking of the 
fancy flowers, and we should have some faith 
in the man who sent it out, for he will be less 
satisfied with an inferior thing than he might 
have been. Mr. Salter, who has had a good 
deal to do with the improvements in the 
French flowers, has left Yersailles and settled 
as a florist at Hammersmith, where he will 
be an active agent in introducing French 
novelties. The ground he occupies once be- 
longed to Lee and Kenedy, and was used to 
prove the various kinds of fruit, after the same 
fashion, or rather before the same fashion, as is 
adopted in the Horticultural Gardens. 
NEW FLOWERS AND PLANTS. 
ExACTJM ZETLANicuM, Roxhurgh (Ceylon 
Exacum). — Gentianacege § Gentianeee. — A 
very pretty annual plant, with erect four- 
angled glabrous stems, branched in the upper 
part in a corymbose manner, and bearing op- 
posite, sessile, elliptic-oblong or lance-shaped 
leaves, which are distinctly marked with three 
nerves or longitudinal veins. The flowers 
which grow in the leafy corymbs which crown 
the stems, are of a rich purplish-blue, large 
and handsome ; they are rotate, that is, they 
have a short tube, and a wide spread limb, which 
is divided into five oval lobes. The beauty 
of the flowers is considerably increased by 
the large prominent yellow anthers. Native 
of Ceylon. 
Introduced in 1848 to the Garden of 
the Royal Dublin Society, at Glasnevin. 
iFlowers in September. It bears the names 
Chironia trhiervis (Linnaeus, not of the gar- 
dens) ; and Lismntlms zeylanicus (Sprengel). 
Cultui'e. — Requires a stove ; turfy-peat soil ; 
propagated by seeds, which should be so^vn 
on the surface of damp sandy-peat soil. The 
* Glenny's Properties of Flowers, in a separate 
Tolume. Price Is. Houlston & Stoneman. 
growing plants, though freely watered, must 
be well drained. 
RiGiDELLA ORTHANTHA, Lemuire (straight- 
flowered Rigidella). — Iridacese. — A pretty 
bulbous plant, of robust habit, with ample 
deeply plicate or folded leaves, and showy 
flowers, larger than the other species of the 
genus. The flowers grow on a branched 
many-flowered scape ; they are of a rich 
scarlet colour. In this species the flowers, in- 
stead of being bent as in the others, are always 
erect ; and the interior segments of the peri- 
anth, which in the others appear as it were in 
a rudimentary state, are in this much deve- 
loped, being equal with, or exceeding the 
stigma. Native of Mexico. Introduced to 
the Belgian Gardens in 1844. Flowers 
? Culture. — Requires a greenhouse ; 
peat and loam, intermixed with leaf-mould ; 
propagated by offsets from the bulbs. 
Anthadenia SESAMOiDES, Leviaire (sesa- 
mum-like Anthadenia). — Bignoniacese § Sesa- 
mete.f — A very showy biennial, having an 
.affinity to Sesamum indicum; and in habit 
•f- According to the Hoi-tus Vaiihoutteanus . 
bably Pedaliacefe. 
pro^ 
