436 
FLOWER SHOWS. 
exposed to the open air, must be guarded 
against heavy rains. 
When first introduced this plant was 
thought to be a Pentstemon, and for some time 
passed in gardens under the name of Pent- 
stemon meocicanum. It is, or was, also called 
P. prhnulinus in some continental gardens. 
It was, however, found to be botanically dis- 
tinct from the Pentstemons, and was accord- 
ingly named Tetranema, derived from tetra, 
four, and nemo, a filament, in allusion to the 
number of stamens found in its blossoms, 
Pentstemon having five stamens. It belongs 
to the natural order Scrophulariaceas, and 
the Linnasan Didynamia Angiospermia. 
FLOWER SHOWS. 
CAPABILITY FOR ACTIXG AS A JUDGE. 
"With regard to the judgment displayed by 
men of experience in Floriculture, nothing 
can be much clearer than the fact, that it 
must be a sort of natural gift that qualifies a 
man for a good judge, otherwise those who 
have had great experience could never com- 
mit the errors they do in their awards of 
prizes, and opinions of Florists' flowers. When 
Mathew's Enchantress first came out we said 
in an instant it was the best of its class ; one 
florist, who has been considered to know 
something about these things, would not 
allow it had any such merit ; no, it was 
crumpled, it was this, that, and the other. 
Now, however, it has been out awhile, and 
people have grown it upon our recommen- 
dation, nobody ventures to dispute that it 
is, as we affirmed, the very best of its class. 
We could mention twenty similar instances. 
If we go back to Dahlias, it will be remem- 
bered that Mr. Widnall disputed with us 
about Springfield Eival, and others besides 
him insisted that Widnall's Perfection was the 
better flower. Nay, it was obstinately con- 
tested, when shown the year it was let out; but 
with half a glance, we had determined its 
merit in the seed-bed, and up to this day it 
can rarely be beaten in all points in its own 
class ; at all events, it outlived the Perfec- 
tion by many years. It may be, that interest 
has something to do with florists' decisions, 
but men will not wilfully stake their credit 
upon events that must be decided against 
them ultimately. We are bound, therefore, 
to believe that they are not good judges, and 
that practice in such cases does not make 
perfect. There is such a thing as showy 
flowers out of character. There are oc- 
casionally extraordinary specimens of flowers, 
not generally good ; and as judgment can 
only be formed upon what is placed be- 
fore us, it is quite possible a man may be de- 
ceived, however good judge he may be; and 
the only check against being deceived is ; to 
require a number of blooms, and to have it 
declared from how many plants they have 
been cut. The greatest plague a raiser has to 
contend with is uncertainty, and some of 
our most beautiful flowers have been aban- 
doned because they were uncertain. 
Turner's Metropolitan, the finest model of 
a flower that ever was seen, proved so 
uncertain, that he gave it away instead of 
charging for it ; and we have had more than 
one letter, stating that it was the finest flower 
the writers had in their collection. Had 
this gone out at half-a-guinea we should 
have been abused by all the buyers for 
speaking highly of it. Egyptian Fung was 
handsome and uncertain, Conqueror of the 
World was beautiful but uncertain, and many 
others have been nearly or quite abandoned, 
{ only because a man had need grow a hedge-row 
of them to get a bloom, and then perhaps might 
fail. If, then, the best judges, who must 
decide from what is before them, are liable to 
mislead when a flower is very uncertain, how 
much it behoves a Society to procure good 
judges — in seedlings, not merely people who 
have bought, and sold, and grown the flower 
they are to judge a long while, but men who 
are known to decide upon principles, and who 
know when they see a good flower that it is so. 
Xo man can be a good judge until he can 
go in among flowers with a perfect model 
forcibly impressed on his imagination ; he can 
then instantly detect imperfections, and de- 
cide whether they are sufficient to justify the 
rejection of the flower. We have seen so 
repeatedly the error and obstinacy of a man 
who has fancied he was a judge, and contested 
the points with one who really was so, that 
we think judges as important as prizes; and 
the Society that cannot employ the one might 
as well not give the other. It is a complete 
farce to send in mere growers; and to fancy 
that a man can learn it if it do not come 
natural to him, is a fallacy. We have watched 
the progress of an amateur who has been 
some years employed to give opinions on 
flowers, but who is as incapable now as he 
was the first hour he was set at it, and has 
committed his employers as much the very 
last year as he did the first, though from the 
fact of being considered no authority, the 
mischief he does is very limited. We have 
been sadly blamed for attributing to design 
what has been purely ignorance, but we have 
honestly done it : we have believed it was 
design, on account of the extravagance of the 
injustice committed, and we have felt it im- 
possible to believe that a man's vision could 
so deceive him, as to enable him to arrive at 
a conclusion so palpably wrong. Who, for 
instance, could believe that any living man 
who had ever seen a dozen dahlias, would 
