Plate 133. 
DOUBLE ZONAL PELARGONIUM — “ EMILY LAXTON.” 
The variety of the Double Zonal Pelargonium, the subject of our Plate, is remarkable 
for its very large bright scarlet semi-double flowers, which are upwards of two inches in 
diameter, the petals broad, and the flowers arranged on long footstalks so as to form an im- 
mense and well-expanded truss. The plant is also said to flower and open its blooms freely 
— an advantage which the very double varieties frequently do not possess. The foliage is 
zoned on a lightish green ground, and the flowerstalk is longer than our space enables us to 
show on the Plate. The variety was raised by Mr. Laxton, the originator of Jewel , and other 
recent novelties amongst Double Zonals, and is an unusual effect of crossing double flowers, 
the ordinary tendency in doubles being towards a reduction of size in the flower in proportion 
to the increase in the number of the petals ; but in this instance a contrary result has been 
obtained, the individual flowers and trusses being larger than those of the Single Zonals, and 
the flowers equal in size to those of most of the Show Pelargoniums. 
Injustice to the subject of our Plate we feel bound to add, that as regards the double- 
ness of the flowers it is considerably underdrawn, the doubling of the blooms in the plant 
itself being usually considerably more than is represented in our Plate ; these things being 
so commonly overdone (instead of underdone) in certain publications, it might cause the plant 
to be under-estimated unless we called attention to the real fact. 
Emily Laoclon was unanimously awarded a First-Class Certificate by the Floral Com- 
mittee of the Loyal Horticultural Society on the 4th June last, and the stock, we under- 
stand, is in the hands of Messrs. Brown, of Stamford, for distribution next season. 
Plate 134. 
BLANDFORDIA FLAMMEA-ELEGANS. 
The truly handsome plant we figure under the above name is a hybrid between 
B. Cunninghamii and B. flcimmea , recently raised by Messrs. E. G. Henderson and Son, of 
St. John’s Wood. Both parents are fine large- flowered species, B. Jlammea having leaves 
with a slightly rough edge and distant long-stalked flowers ; whilst B. Cunninghamii has 
entire margined leaves, and dense umbellate heads of short-stalked flowers. Our plant was 
the first to bloom out of a hundred or two seedlings, and its flowers depart from the pendulous 
habit of its parents, as the flowers in B. fiammea-elegans are often either quite horizontal, or 
nearly so. The handsome perennial herbs which come under this genus of Liliacese, are 
natives of New Holland and Tasmania, and their cultivation is most simple if treated after 
the manner of the bulbs imported from the Cape of Good Hope. If planted in a mixture of 
sandy loam and peat they will do well ; and if planted out in a conservatory, they will 
generally flower more freely than when grown in pots. They increase from seeds or suckers. 
All the known species coming under Blandfordia are eminently beautiful, and deserving of 
more extended cultivation, for few greenhouse plants are more effective in colour, or flower 
more freely. They have fleshy rootstocks, long striate radical leaves, with a few other shorter 
leaves and bracts upon the flower scape. The large funnel-shaped, somewhat drooping 
blooms grow in a handsome raceme, and are usually tinted with shades of yellow and red, as 
in the plant here figured. B. nobilis was illustrated by us in Plate 403 ; and though 
smaller in its inflorescence it is also a remarkably handsome and useful plant for the 
decoration of the conservatory or greenhouse. 
