if 
BOTANICAL FRAGMENTS. 
accommodation for tender plants which none but wealthy cultivators are equal to. But both the 
Camellia and the Rhododendron are so hardy, and will do for a time with so little light, that any 
spare shed or out-house may be made to serve as a temporary protection for them, and it is by this 
means that as fast as my Rhododendrons go out of flower, I am able to supply their place by fresh 
ones. A beautiful white Rhododendron (caueasicum superbum) raised by the same cultivator as the one 
figured at p. 121, flowered with me in February, having more than seventy noble trusses of bloom. 
Immediately after flowering, it was removed under a shed, exposed to the open air, and is only now 
making its shoots. "When grown too large to be longer manageable, they are turned out as I have 
said, into the open ground, where their size and age gives them a good chance of not suffering much 
from the exposure ; but in order to protect the blossoms from being injured by severe weather, move- 
able screens of straw are placed over them as soon as sharp frost sets in, which are not removed till 
March is over. They are now in fine flower : those in the greenhouse being over, and removed out of 
doors in their tubs. The Camellias and Azalea indica are kept in-doors till the wood is ripened, and then 
all are put out for a short refreshment in the open air, till the chill nights and heavy rains of autumn 
require them to be again placed under shelter. 
In addition to the other recommendations of these beautiful tribes, they are easily and safely pro- 
pagated by laying down or inarching, so that specimens of various ages may always be provided 
without difficulty. Persevering and successful efforts have lately been made to increase the hardihood 
of the hybrids continually coming into bloom, but after all it may be doubted whether any plant 
exposed to the rough and variable weather of our inconstant springs, will often expand its blossoms in 
the perfection it displays when sheltered from all ungenial influences. 
Rhododendron caueasicum grandiflorum purpureum which I had from Mr. H. Waterer, and which 
is a late flowerer, is now loaded with trusses of bloom twenty-four inches (nearly three quarters of a 
yard) in circumference, and eighteen inches over, the single blossoms being four inches across. The 
other varieties flower with equal luxuriance. 
• 
BOTANICAL FRAGMENTS. 
The leading considerations with the hybridist in the selection of parents, according to Mr. Cole's 
experience, should be: 1, Family alliance; 2, Constitutional affinity — that is, choosing two plants 
with organic similarity of growth, whether bulbous, herbaceous, ligneous, annual, or - otherwise. "Where 
such distinctive differences exist, though the family alliance is undoubted, no cross has hitherto been 
produced ; as, for example, between Tropajolum brachyceras, and T. aduncum, two plants which exactly 
accord except in one minor point ; one being tuberous-rooted, the other annual. — (3Iidland Qard. Mag.) 
Under the name of Campanula coronata there was shown last year at the exhibition of the Societe 
Royale de Flore, at Brussels, a beautiful hardy Campanula, distinguished by breadth of flower, and by 
a large coloured calyx arranged in the form of a star. The name coronata has been given to it on 
account of this form of the calyx. The plant in question belonged to M. Symon Brunelle, who sent to 
Professor Morren a flower for examination ; but he had previously received a branch from M. 
Putseys, the Vice-President of the Society, who introduced it to Brussels from the gardens of 
Arras (in the north of France). There can be no doubt it is a variety of C. persicarfolia of Linna?us ; 
but in the seven varieties of this species noticed by De Candolle, the plant under consideration is not 
recognised. Reichenbach, in his Centuries of Icones has described and figured a Campanula persi- 
csefolia calycina, having large, distinct, oval-lanceolate calyx lobes, and the corolla narrow at the 
base ; but in the variety coronata, the calyx is one piece, the lobes being joined half their length at the 
least, and presenting the form and the colour of a second corolla. The calyx also is white, but the 
points of the lobes are tinged with green. Dr. Morren has characterised it as follows: — Campanula 
persiceefolia coronata : calyx monophyllous, very broad, stellated, lobes joined as far as the middle, free 
at the summit, angular, one-colored ; corolla simple, campanulate. This species is often found double. 
In the variety under notice, the corolla is simple, the only modification is in the calyx. It is a 
showy perennial. — [La Belg. Sort.) 
Sir "W. J. Hooker refers our Franciscea confertiflora to Mr. Bentham's Brunsfelsia calycina. With 
the F. confertiflora (Brunsfelsia confertiflora, Bentham) Sir W. Hooker is familiar, and a splendid 
figure of it occurs in Pohl's Plantar um Brasiliarum Icones ; but Pohl's description and figure are said 
to be quite at variance with our plant, which is unquestionably the F. (Brunsfelsia) calycina, figured 
characteristically enough in the Flora Fluminensis, and well distinguished by its large inflated calyx. 
If this be so, the name F. calycina will require to be substituted for F. confertiflora, at p. 73 of our , > 
present volume. fM, 
1 
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