354 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
and said, “ Well, so it doe3; but that is not what I meant.” But now 
as to the Cyclamen. The hot summer seems to have suited them, for 
although on one of the very hottest pieces of rockwork I have, two 
plants had a hundred blooms each on them. There is one, a variety of 
Atkinsi, with very pointed and marbled leaves which does not seed, and 
which I cannot get anywhere. The others have seeded all over the 
rockery, and plants are continually springing up amongst the Ompha- 
lodes, Saxifrages, &c. Chionodoxa Lucilim was very good, the clumps 
have increased in size, and all round them I see quantities of seedlings 
coming up, so that it ought soon to be very plentiful. I sowed some in a 
pan, and every seed I think germinated. Some writer in a contemporary 
has written against it, as if it was not wanted when we had Scilla sibirica, 
but they are entirely distinct, the Scilla being of a dark metallic blue, 
the Chionodoxa a bright cterulean colour. 
Anemone fulgens was another plant which seemed to rejoice in the 
hot summer. I cannot understand why it should be said that it is 
necessary to import tubers of this each year if you want it to flower 
well. Mine have all flowered most fully, and this spring better than 
ever, and there is no flower that I know of so intensely dazzling a scarlet. 
Anemone apennina is another plant which did well, but I see it has spread 
away from the centre of the patch. Of the Androsaces the only two which 
did well with me were lanuginosa and sarmentosa. I thought I had suc¬ 
ceeded with carnea and carnea eximia, but they both failed with me last 
year, and as I see the most opposite modes of treatment recommended for 
it I am confirmed in my opinion of the great difficulty attending its 
cultivation. Lanuginosa, on the other hand, is easy, and where it can be 
planted so as to hang down over a stone, and its soft woolly foliage can 
be protected by a piece of glass or a conical handglass in winter, it will do 
admirably. A. sarmentosa has done wonderfully with me, a small plant 
has now so increased as to cover a space 18 inches square. I, in one of 
my former notes, doubted as to its flowering well, but last year every 
rosette sent up its pretty head of bloom, and I can see this spring that it 
is going to do the same. Cypripedium spectabile again flowered well, 
some of the stems having two flowers on them. It required, owing to the 
hot season, extra watering, and I hope that they will Btart up again pre¬ 
sently ; the space where they are is getting too confined for them, but I am 
unwilling to remove them. I had tried one or two other terrestrial 
Orchids, but they did not do well. My daughter is, however, I think, 
succeeding with the British species, and these are generally considered 
difficult to grow. 
Ramondia pyrenaica also did very well. It also is getting too large 
for its space, but I have not been so afraid to move it, and I find that 
although it thrives best when shielded from the sun’s rays, it will really 
do well in any position. Of the Primulas I have already written. They 
received a very great baking, but as I find with the wild species that it 
recovers from this very soon, so I expect it will be with them. Of those 
of the P. Cashmeriana type, P. spectabilis, and P. pulcherrima (all very much 
alike) in former seasons the leaves were very large, the blooms very 
forward, so that they got soddened and spoilt by the frost and wet of 
early spring. This year the foliage was scanty, and the flowers were 
produced much later, so that I have had a very fair bloom. Rosea 
was charming with its bright-tinted flowers, especially in the bud. 
P. auricula marginata was also very beautiful, its foliage alone making it 
a pretty object. P. Sieboldi has also done well and spread a good deal on 
the rockery, and is very pretty and bright. I have been troubled to get 
the Hepaticas, especially angulosa, to answer, but I last year removed it 
to another rockery in which I could see no great difference, but it has 
thriven well. The same was the case with Saxifraga oppositifolia, which 
I have tried in many places, and at last it has made itself at home and 
has become a large plant. Aubrietia Ingrami, or rather Ingram’s variety 
of the common one, has been exceedingly beautiful, and so were the 
vernal Phloxes, brilliant in their masses of colour. Another plant that 
did well with me, and of which I am not a little proud, is iEthionema 
coridifolium. I had it for grandiflorum, which it certainly is not, and has 
formed a good-sized clump. Of the Dianthi, neglectus has formed a fine 
clump, while what I have as D. deltoides is a complete weed, and has to be 
kept in check continually. D. Seguierii is very late-flowering and pretty. 
Dodecatheon meadia has become, in the only moist piece I have on my 
rockery, a fine healthy plant, and gave abundantly its curious blossoms. 
Amongst the Saxifrages I have found Wallacei very satisfactory, and also 
albo-purpurea, one of the prettiest of the mossy section. S. longifolia, 
the queen of Saxifrages, blossomed, and then perished. Of the Gentians 
I cannot say much, for while I have found G. verna do well in pots, I 
cannot get it to succeed on the rockery. For this I am really sorry, as it 
is one of the most lovely of alpines. G. acaulis, on the other hand, is a 
very easy plant to grow, and has had a fair number of its lovely blue 
flowers. I mean to try it again under the treatment recommended by 
Mr. George Paul—namely, turfy loam, peat, coarse sand, and limestone 
chippings. The Edelweiss did not do so well as in former years, and 
the plants do not now look as ^vigorous as they ought to do. Litho- 
spermum prostratum, usually an easy plant, has been again a failure with 
me, the only plant which is doing well is on a very sunny position on my 
front rockery. Myosotis dissitiflora has established itself at the back of 
the rockery, and, as is its wont, has scattered its seeds far and wide. It 
requires to be well looked after or it will overpower other things. 
Omphalodes Lucilise I am disappointed with. I have a good plant of 
it, but it does not creep as does verna, and although of a most lovely shade 
of blue, the trusses are very small, and in that way disappointing. Silene 
acaulis, although a native plant, is one that has very much bothered me. 
I have tried it over and over again, but cannot boast of any success. 
The plants I now have look better than their predecessors, and I must 
[ April SO, 188 r 
try to protect them with glass in the winter, for it is one of those alpines 
which suffer much, I am sure, from the constant changes of dryness and 
moisture to which they are exposed in our lowlands, changes which do 
not so much occur in the high altitudes of our own country where they 
are found. The Soldanellas, too, I have not found amenable to culture in 
the open air. I wish that I could ^manage them, as, although very tiny 
they are very pretty. 
Such have been some of my experiences with alpine plants on my 
small rockeries, and I may truly say that there is no part of my garden 
which has given me more pleasure at this time of the year, April and 
May especially. They are a never-ending source of delight. I cannot 
boast of large quantities of the various kinds, but this I have neither space 
nor means for. I do the best that I can, and it is one of the pleasures of 
growing this cla^s of plants that so many species of such very diverse 
characters, flowering at different seasons of the year, can be cultivated. 
There are, too, always pleasant surprises, for oftentimes a plant comes up 
of whose existence you were ignorant or had forgotten, and I am sure that 
many of the readers of the Journal miss a great pleasure in not attempt¬ 
ing their growth. Choose a sunny (not shady as so many do) part of 
your garden, get some rocks or stones, make it as natural as you can, and 
for a few pounds you will be able to stock it with a series of plants which 
will well reward your care and attention.—D., Deal. 
IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE OF POLLEN ON FRUIT. 
At a meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia some 
time since Mr. Thomas Meehan directed attention to an ear of Indian corn 
sent by Mr. Burnett Landreth, which had nearly all one side with brownish 
red grain, the other side creamy white, which was the normal colour of the 
variety. Usually the intermixture of colours which occasionally occurred 
in an ear of corn is attibuted to cross-fertilisation. It is apparent that this 
could not be the case in this instance. The whole solid block is coloured, 
and at the edge of the coloured mass only half a grain would be coloured 
in some instances. The colouring influence had evidently spread from some 
central point, quite independent of any single grain, and had spread from 
grain to grain through the receptacle until the colouring material was 
exhausted. In cross-fertilisation, from the entangled position of the silk¬ 
like pistils, no such regularity of colouring in adjoining grains could occur. 
On reflection we may understand that at times colour in corn must come 
from causes independent of cross-fertilisation, as the departure in the first 
instance from one colour must be from an innate power to vary in colour 
independently of any pollinating influence. 
The facts are interesting as bearing on many problems as yet not wholly 
solved. Much has been said about the changes in nature being by slow 
modifications through long ages, but we have frequent instances of sudden 
leaps. There are no gradations between the colours of these grains. 
Again, it is in dispute how far cross-fertilisation influences the seed. 
Generally, no immediate influence is conceded; we have to wait till the 
Beed grows, and we can examine the new plant to ascertain the potency of 
the several parents. So far corn has been the chief and almost the only 
evidence that the seed or its surroundings are immediately affected ; but 
recently statements have been made that the receptacle in the Strawberry 
—what we know in everyday life as the Strawberry—is similarly influenced. 
There are some varieties wholly pistillate, and it is claimed that when 
pollen is applied from other varieties the resultant fruit is that of the male 
parent. It is of great practical importance that such a question should bo 
decided by undoubted facts. Experience in other directions does not confirm 
these views. 
The Mitchella repens is really a dioecious plant. Many years ago ha 
found one plant with white berries and removed some portion to his own 
grounds, where, isolated from others, it produces no fruit. In its native 
location it bears white berries freely, though the pollen is from the original 
scarlet-berried forms. Mr. Jackson Dawson had given a similar case on 
Professor Sargent’s grounds, where a white-berried Prinos verticillatus is 
produced, though it must have pollen from the original red-berried form. 
Other illustrations were referred to. To those who looked for regularity of 
rule in these cases, and in the light of the specimen of com before the 
meeting, there might be a doubt whether the variation in corn, often 
attributed to cross-fertilisation, may not in some cases result from an innate 
power to vary. It did not really follow that the rule should be uniform, for 
those who had experience in hybridising knew how variable were the 
results, even from the seed of a single flower. Parkman had obtained in 
Lilies seedlings so exactly like the female parent that only for the remark¬ 
able form from the same seed-vessel, known as Lilium Parkmani, it might 
have been doubted if some mistake as to the use of foreign pollen had not 
been made. If so little influence could occasionally be found at a remote 
end of the line we may reasonably look for an immediate influence at the 
nearer end in some exceptional cases. But there appeared to be no care¬ 
fully conducted experiments on corn recorded anywhere, though the belief 
in the immediate influence of strange pollen is a reasonable one so far as 
general observation goes. It seemed, however, to him, with the specimen of 
innate variation in corn before us, more careful experiments with corn and 
other things are desirable. 
THREE USEFUL OENOTHERAS. 
CEnotheka Anisoloba (fig. 64). —This species is of erect habit, 
growing to the height of about 2 feet. The flowers, which are white, 
very much resemble those of CE. taraxacifolia, but are not quite so large, 
and the petals are more lobed. They also assume a pinkish tinge before 
they fade. The radical leaves are entire or obscurely toothed, those of 
the stems deeply pinnatifid, and all parts of the plant are slightly 
pubescent. It is a border plant of sterling merit, and may be included 
with credit in e ;ery collection of hardy plants, however select. It can- 
