130 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c February ir, issi. 
open for some days, everything is carefully and minutely examined. 
With us all is rush—a rush for the exhibitors in the morning to 
get their exhibits ready ; a rush for the judges, who have at most 
a couple of hours to get through their work ; a rush for the visitors, 
who gallop round the exhibition, and then go forth to listen to 
the strains of music or to promenade ; a rush to get home again 
at night—much enjoyment all the while, but at the same time an 
enjoyment that must be got through. And as we like to travel 
express and get to the end of our journey as fast as possible, so 
our French neighbours are contented, save on the English fre¬ 
quented lines, to travel deliberately, as if time were no object. 
This difference makes it doubtful whether the experiment is likely 
to be tried here ; and yet if anywhere Manchester at their great 
Whitsuntide Show would seem to be the fittest place to try it in. 
There the Exhibition lasts several days ; there thousands of 
visitors, and many of them from the artisan class, attend ; and 
there is there an indefatigable Secretary who is used to everything 
of the kind, and whom no exertion seems to tire ; and it might 
possibly be that an attempt of this kind would tend to give a 
character to our flower shows which would save them from the 
charge often made against them of being merely a pastime instead 
of a source of profit and instruction ; and botany and horticulture 
are so inseparably connected that what would influence one would 
react on the other. The botanical collector coming upon some 
hitherto unknown treasure does not merely think of the specimen 
he may prepare for his herbarium, but also of the figure his newly 
discovered plant may make some day in the stoves and green¬ 
houses of England ; while he who goes out to collect for such 
plants as may commercially be useful to his employers often 
brings home, too, a plant which, though unsuited for this purpose, 
may yet be very precious in the eyes of botanists. Horticulture 
has profited by the zeal of botanists and vice versa, and in like 
manner this new idea of our neighbours may equally serve the 
cause of both. Is it likely to have a trial ?—D., Deal, 
CULTIVATION OF GLORIOSA SUPERBA. 
Although Gloriosa superba has long been grown in English 
gardens, having been introduced from the East Indies about 1090, 
it is not nearly so common as it deserves to be. Its culture is ex¬ 
tremely simple, and during four or five months of summer a 
moderate-sized tuber under ordinary treatment will produce hun¬ 
dreds of blooms. It should be in all collections of stove plants, 
for its quaint appearance and vivid colours are usually highly 
appreciated ; the flowers also remaining fresh a long time when 
cut, and for specimen glasses for the dinner table I have found it 
invaluable. The tubers under my charge were imported five 
years ago from Ceylon, and have since then increased in size and 
numbers considerably. 
Now is a good time to start them into growth, and my mode of 
procedure is to place a tuber of 5 or 6 inches in length in a 10-inch 
pot. The compost I have found them to succeed in admirably is 
good turfy loam, leaf soil, and a little dung from an old spent 
Mushroom bed with a good proportion of sharp sand. The pots 
should be carefully drained, as the plants require a plentiful 
supply of water at their roots when growing freely. In potting I 
place a little sand under the tubers and bury them 2 inches below 
the surface. Very little water will be required until growth com¬ 
mences, which is generally about six weeks after potting, they 
then grow rapidly and must have a plentiful supply. 
Gloriosas delight in a good brisk moist heat, such as is afforded 
by an ordinary stove. Being a climbing plant it will require a 
support to train it to, and any form of trellis that might be 
thought desirable will do. I prefer to train them up the rafters 
of the stove, as in that position they occupy less space, at the 
same time it affords them a lighter and more airy position—an 
essential point in their culture in obtaining brightly-coloured 
flowers. If grown in a dry atmosphere the plant is liable to 
the attacks of red spider; plenty of atmospheric moisture and 
good syringing overhead night and morning are the best pre¬ 
ventives. When in active growth an application of weak guano 
water at their roots twice a week will be very beneficial. After 
flowering they will show signs of going to rest; then gradually 
withhold water, and when the leaves turn yellow place the pots 
on their sides and allow them to remain so until next season.— 
W. Jordan. 
Chrysanthemum Ethel. —Among a considerable number of 
varieties cultivated in the Cambridge Botanic Garden, none have 
been so particularly remaiked and admired as this. It is a 
Japanese form, not very double, but of the purest white, with the 
distinctive feature of unusually broad florets. It is valuable for 
its long-flowering character, being among the first to open, and 
now, the end of January, still in bloom. Another also is still in 
flower, the name of which appears to be Mr. Deleany, a variety 
of bronze-red colour. Both these are valuable, and were pre¬ 
sented to the Garden by Mr. Wm. Bull.—L. 
VEGETABLE SUPPLY AND CONSUMPTION. 
As a housekeeper I am delighted to see this subject being taken 
up, for it is one that is in urgent need of consideration. If the 
quantity grown is as great as your correspondents assert, how do 
they account for the almost prohibitory price i I feel sure vege¬ 
tables would be eaten if easily procured, fresh, and at a reasonable 
cost. All people above the really poor consume as much as they can 
afford or obtain, but they are now dearer in proportion than meat 
or bread, but cannot take the place of either, and, except Potatoes, 
are not so satisfying. All servants delight in fruit and vegetables, 
but mistresses can seldom supply much beyond Potatoes at pre¬ 
sent prices, for a good dish of Cabbage or Carrots. &c., costs from 
i)d. to 1#. Middlemen may have something to do with this, but 
even where they are sold at the stores the price is not much less. It 
would surely be worth while to bring plenty of cheap fresh vege¬ 
tables if they are grown within the reach of the miles of respect¬ 
able houses, where as a rule now they are rarely used for daily 
consumption. I believe there is some combination amongst the 
large dealers at Covent Garden to keep up prices and to destroy 
or keep away all that is beyond the wants of the present green¬ 
grocers. It seems to me the only cure would be for some of the 
large growers to open a store in some central place, say Oxford 
Street or Regent Street, and sell to customers at wholesale prices 
or a little above. There is a large store for meat in Oxford Street 
which failed I believe last year, but it seems well suited for such 
a purpose and might be combined with the poultry which is now 
sold there. It really seems sad that quantities of excellent food 
is daily utterly wasted because it cannot be brought within reach 
of those who so much need it.—F. R., West End. 
PORTRAITS OF NEW AND NOTABLE PLANTS. 
Cereus Fendleri. —“ This fine Cereus is a native of the great 
Cactus region of the United States, where, according to its author, 
Dr. Engelmann, it inhabits rocks in alluvial river bottoms from 
Santa Fe to the Canon of the Rio Grande below El Paso, and from 
fifty miles east of the Upper Peros westward to Zuni, and the Aztec 
mountains and the copper mines.”— {Bot. Mag., t. 6533.) 
Pitcairnia zeieolia. Eat. ord., Bromeliacese.—“This is one 
of the small number of Pitcairnias from Central America, with 
broad petioled leaves, large subsessile flowers, large clasping 
bracts, and seeds conspicuously tailed at both ends, which make 
up the section Lamproconus, published as a genus by Lemaire. 
Its nearest ally is the New Granadan P. Funkiana of A. Dietrich, 
which was figured under the name of P. macrocalyx at tab. 4705 
of the “ Botanical Magazine.” The present plant, although it has 
been known for a quarter of a century, has not been figured 
previously. It was discovered by Warcewicz in Guatemala, and 
we have a fine specimen in the Kew herbarium, gathered by Purdie 
in the province of Santa Martha in New Granada about 1845. 
The drawing was made from a plant sent by Dr. Regel, which 
flowered in the Palm house at Kew in December, 1879.”— {Ibid., 
t. 6535.) 
NYMPHiEA tuberosA. Eat. ord., Nymptueaceae.—“ Nymphaea 
tuberosa is a native of lakes and slow-running waters in the north¬ 
eastern United States, and may be the plant alluded to by Nuttall 
as the European N. alba, with which it agrees in being nearly 
scentless. It is described as having the leaves green or yellowish 
beneath, but in our cultivated specimens they were of a pale dirty 
purple. The rootstock prolongs indefinitely, but the leaf-bearing 
tip alone is vigorous, the old part decaying as the new elongates. 
The tubers, which are 1 to 4 inches long, when fully formed 
break away from the rootstock, and float about till they are 
stranded and germinate ; they resemble those of the Jerusalem 
Artichoke, and as many as thirty have been counted on 6 inches 
of rootstock. In shallow water both leaves and flowers rise high 
above the surface ; in deep water the ripening fruit is drawn to 
the very bottom by the spiral coiling of the peduncle. Cattle 
devour the leaves; as do deer, which leave the woods at night 
to feed on them. The Royal Gardens are indebted to the Botanic 
Garden of Harvard University, U.S., for tubers, which flowered 
in July and August.”— {Ibid., t. 6536.) 
Statice tatarica. Eat. ord., Plumbagineae.— “With the 
exception of the Thrift—which is generally consigned to do 
duty as ‘ edgings,’ and a few showy greenhouse species—the 
genus Statice has found little favour of late with cultivators ; 
yet it contains many plants of singular beauty and interest. 
