THE CALCEOLARIA. 
447 
misled than in the Calceolaria ; and had 
not the properties, as laid down by a cele- 
brated raiser, been disputed, and, in fact, 
superseded, we should by this time have lost 
all the most beautiful character of the species. 
33>^ 
It will be recollected that Mr. Green, the gar- 
dener of Lady and Sir E. Antrobus made a 
great advance in the size of this flower, and 
was in a fair way of carrying all before him. 
The judges at the Horticultural Society, capti- 
vated by the size of flowers, and unacquainted 
with those principles of Floriculture which are 
the foundation of improvement, gave prizes 
for the largest and best blooms, not only of 
named flowers, but seedlings also, and with- 
out reference to the habit of the plant ; the 
consequence was, that Mr. Green's were always 
successful, where flowers, with better proper- 
ties, were rejected. This led Mr. Green to 
deceive himself, and he actually ventured to 
give as the criterion of a good Calceolaria the 
very model of his own successful flowers. 
Now, according to the true principles of Flo- 
riculture, nothing about a plant should look 
ugly, meagre, or untidy. Turn a plant back, 
front, * or sideways, it should look well, and 
nothing should be amiss. On looking at one 
of Mr. Green's models of perfection sideways, 
the plant exhibited neither shape nor make ; 
the flowers looked flat, thin, and poor ; the 
colour of the backs, which rather swelled out 
to prevent their being absolutely flat, were of 
a. dull dirty colour, and the contrast between 
the front of the plant and the side, was as 
great as the front and side of a theatrical 
scene. Now a flower exhibiting such imper- 
fections was anything but perfect, consequently 
it became high time to publish the perfection 
of the Calceolaria founded on true principles. 
This was accordingly done by Mr. Glenny, 
the well-known author of The Properties of 
Flowers, and the result was the abandonment 
of all other models, and the introduction of a 
superior class of flowers. Mr. Glenny's pro- 
perties were as follows : — 
" PROPERTIES OF THE CALCEOLARIA. 
" The plant should be shrubby ; the foliage 
thick and dark green ; the habit bushy ; the 
wood strong. The flower-stems should be 
short and strong ; the foot-stalks of the blooms 
elastic, and branch well away from each other, 
to form a rich mass of flowers without crowd- 
ing. The individual blooms depend entirely 
on the form of the purse, and it should be a 
perfect round hollow ball. The orifice and 
calyx cannot be too small, nor the flower too 
large. The colour should be very dense, and 
whether it be a spot in the middle, or stripes 
or blotches, should be bold and well defined, 
and the ground should be all one colour or 
shade, whether white, straw colour, sulphur, 
yellow, or any other. The colour of a self 
should be brilliant, and all over the same 
actual shade. Dark flowers with pale edges, 
or clouded or indefinite colours, are bad and 
unfit to show. The bloom should form one 
handsome bunch of pendant flowers, com- 
mencing where the foliage leaves off, and the 
flower-stems should not be seen between the 
foliage and the flowers, which should hang 
gracefully, and be close to each other; the 
branches of the flower-stems holding them 
out to form a handsome spreading surface." 
Taking these properties for our guide, it is 
easy to perceive that if the flowers be per- 
fectly round, and all over of the same ground 
colour, it will matter not which way you look 
at a plant ; nobody can conceive a more beau- 
tiful object than a Calceolaria with perfectly 
globular blooms hanging gracefully down to 
the very foliage of the plant, and forming, as 
it were, a tree of flowers above the bush of 
green. Such plants may look better in front, 
but they will look well any how ; and although 
it may not have been noticed, the more globu- 
lar the blooms are, the less difference there is 
between the ground colour of the front and 
the back, whereas, in the flat flowers, the back 
of one of the brightest varieties looks dull and 
dirty. On this account we recommend those 
who intend growing Calceolarias to begin 
with a small stock of those in which they find 
the greatest approach to a globe, without 
minding either size or colour. The collection 
may be selected at almost any nursery round 
London, or near a provincial town. Few who 
live distant from a populous place find it worth 
while to grow these ephemeral and delicate 
subjects. Here select about three different 
coloured grounds, and as many different 
