NOTES ON FLORISTS FLOWERS. 
461 
NOTES ON FLORISTS FLOWERS. 
BY GEORGE GLENNY. 
The principal novelties of the last few 
weeks are dahlias ; and there have been 
several opportunities of showing in public, 
(although not exactly among the right sec- 
tion), the subjects that are to come out next 
year. So far as the early shows have been 
concerned, there has been very little that was 
at all striking, but a good deal of mediocrity. 
The general fault of the novelties has been 
want of round outline. 
The roseate or cockade outline, has pre- 
vailed to a great degree, but there have been 
two or three exceptions. At the time we write 
this, we have not made up our minds to any- 
thing, but shall merely describe a few seed- 
lings that we have ■ seen, without knowing 
whether we shall see them again or not, and 
certainly without knowing whether upon 
further acquaintance we shall recommend 
them to be grown. A few words perhaps on 
our list of last year may not be considered out 
of place. 
Berryer, Gem, Yellow Standard, MissVize, 
Lady of the Lake, Star, Rosetta, Victorine, 
Louis Philippe, Andromeda, so fully answer 
the description we gave of them, that we need 
make no remark. With regard to the Queen 
of Sheba, we are compelled to admit she does 
not, inasmuch as all the early part of the 
month she was speckled, tipped, shaded, 
blushed, and bore all manner of truant charac- 
ters ; so much so, that many who have got a 
good deal to learn as well as unlearn, before 
they ought to trust themselves to write about 
dahlias, fancied they had made a great discovery. 
We have a strange straightforward way 
of describing things as they are, and of obey- 
ing our own eyesight rather than believing any- 
body ; and when we saw nine blooms at one 
time, not one of which had the smallest indi- 
cation of colour, but were as pure a white and as 
fine a shape as we ever want to see a flower of 
the kind, we had no choice but to describe it 
as a white. There was no evidence before us 
that in the early part of the season, the lady had 
coloured too much, or otherwise spoiled her 
complexion, for when we picked the flower to 
pieces, the base of the petals indicated no 
shades of colour, and the flower died as white as 
it lived. However, it has been exhibited for a 
white, and passed for a white many times 
this season, and therefore the worthy doctor 
who expresses his disappointment in a Garden 
Newspaper, and calls upon the reader " to 
judge his astonishment at finding that the 
white dahlia wasn't a white dahlia at all," 
only proves that this, like many other flowers, 
is uncertain ; and that the writer is greatly 
astonished at a circumstance which creates no 
surprise in persons who know any thing about 
dahlias, and the uncertainty of their always 
blooming in character. 
We spoke of the flower as we saw it, and we 
have seen it this year as we saw it last year. 
It is not a white dahlia always, but it was 
when we described it, and there was not the 
least reason to suppose it was ever otherwise 
from all we saw. We have not seen it grown 
so well as it was last season, but we are writ- 
ing rather early in the month, and it may be 
like scores of other excellent and first-rate 
things — good for nothing till the cold weather 
comes. 
Goldfinder has up to this time shown 
badly, not like itself ; the outline, which was 
last year far better than any yellow, except 
Dodd's Prince of Wales, has at present been 
deficient, nevertheless, we have seen one plant 
growing, where all the flowers were double, 
symmetrical, and fine. This is very likely 
to bring up its lee way among the later 
shows. The grand test for all these things 
is the Metropolitan show, which being so 
late in the month, must be going on after this 
is printed. 
We think no more of the judgment on seed- 
ling flowers anywhere else, than we do of a 
man's praise of his own novelties. The 
packing of judges is managed to a most 
abominable extent ; and if a man who will 
swerve for nobody is proposed, some fellow 
who has laid his plans for his own benefit and 
tricked or pushed his own man in, will object, 
because an honest judge is certain defeat to 
the trickery of packing. Even if the other 
two are packed, or the other four, in cases of 
five judges, the one sound man is security 
against the deepest game the rest may be in- 
clined to play. 
At a show at Chelsea, there was enough to 
call into action all the cunning of the Fancy. 
Some man was stupid enough to propose 
money prizes for the best seedlings, and the 
society in a body was silly enough to adopt 
the proposition. It promised seven prizes, 
gave only three, and these were given by no 
means to the best flowers. The distinction of 
first, second, and third, made it infinitely 
worse ; but nobody who understood these 
matters expected anything else, and so no 
person was disappointed. It had been most 
unjustifiably rendered more important by a 
trick that we think almost unworthy of an 
enlightened age : — Letters were written to 
the members of the Metropolitan Society, upon 
prospectuses of the Chelsea Show, announc- 
ing, without the slightest authority, that the 
Metropolian Show was to be given up. The 
effect was to bring up some of the members 
who attend the principal show in the whole 
country, and it had one good effect : it showed 
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