February 17,1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 131 
Of these the palm must be given to the Canary Island species, 
introduced by the late M. Bourgeau, which were once the orna¬ 
ments of a house at Kew devoted to plants loving the dry climate 
of the south of Europe, but which have long since ‘ gone out of 
cultivation,’ S. Holfordii, Hort., remaining as almost the only 
representative of the group. Amongst the south-eastern European 
ones are many hardy kinds of remarkable beauty, such as the 
subject of the present plate, whose flowering corymbs (of one 
plant) form together rounded masses a yard in diameter of 
delicate sprays studded with ruby-coloured flowers, each set in 
a silvery calycine cup, than which a prettier floral object cannot 
well be conceived. It is a native of saline districts in the south¬ 
east of Europe, from Dalmatia and Hungary eastward through 
Bulgaria and S. Russia to the Crimea and Siberia east of the 
Ural Mountains. S. tatarica was introduced into England in 
1731 by Philip Miller, and is described in the first edition of his 
Dictionary as Limomium 5 ; it is perfectly hardy, flowers in June 
and July, and remains long in bloom.”— {Ibid., t. 6537.) 
Lysionotus serrata. Nat. ord., Gesneraceas.— “The tem¬ 
perate and subtropical regions of the Himalaya Mountains, espe¬ 
cially in the eastern divison of the range, abound 
in beautiful species of Gesneracese, of which a 
considerable number have been cultivated at Kew, 
and some figured in this work ; and it is not a 
little remarkable that this species, which is the 
most widely distributed and one of the most 
beautiful of them all, should have so long been a 
stranger to our (gardens. Unfortunately those 
Gesneraceas of India are all stove or greenhouse 
plants, and in the case of the latter the winter¬ 
ing of them requires great care, as they cannot 
be exposed to the long cold of the English winter, 
and if put by in a greenhouse they are apt to 
start into growth too early ; many of them, how¬ 
ever, and the present in particular, form fleshy 
rootstocks which will stand a good deal of drought, 
though none possess such tubers as the American 
Gesneras, and which render them so easy of cul¬ 
ture and of transportation. 
“ Lysionotus serrata is a native of the subtro¬ 
pical and temperate regions of the Himalaya, from 
Kumaon in the north-west to Bhotan in the east, 
inhabiting damp forests at elevations of 5000 to 
8000 feet in Sikkim, descending to 2500 in 
Kumaon ; it is also abundant at 4000 feet in the 
Khasia mountains, and is found on the Karen 
hills in Burma ; its favourite sites are mossy rocks, 
banks, and old tree-trunks. At Kew it fills a 
square pan with stems a foot high, and seems 
quite at home in a subtropical heat, flowering in 
July and August ; and in its native mountains 
the peduncles are often a foot long, and bear 
clusters of forty to fifty flowers, of which many 
open at a time. The plant figured was raised 
from seed sent by Mr. Gammie, of the Forest 
Department, Darjeeling. The pale whitish stripe 
along the nerves of the leaf is not common in 
the wild state of the plant.”— {Ibid., t. 6538.) 
ASPLENIUM CICUTARIUM. 
Amongst the most numerous occupants of our warm ferneries 
I think none better deserves the attention of cultivators than 
A. cicutarium. It appears to be a comparatively scarce plant. 
Why this should be so is not easy to understand, for it is with¬ 
out doubt one of the most elegant of all cultivated Ferns. It 
has a rather wide geographical range, being found in tropical 
America from Cuba and Mexico to Peru, Abyssinia, and the 
coast of Guiana. It is of easy culture, and should find a place in 
every collection of Ferns however small. Where plants are 
grown for dinner-table decoration this species should be grown in 
quantity, for it is very suitable for that purpose, being exceedingly 
light and graceful in habit. The fronds attain the .length of 
between a foot and 18 inches, and from 4 to 6 inches broad, with 
ten to fifteen pinnm on each side. The lower ones are 2 to 3 inches 
long and about an inch broad, cut down to the rachis into nu¬ 
merous ovate rhomboidal pinnules, which are about half an inch 
long and about a quarter of an inch broad, obliquely truncate on 
the lower side, and cut down to the rachis throughout into linear 
or oblong segments, which are once or twice cleft at the apex. 
The rachis is compressed and often winged ; the fronds are a bright 
green colour. It grows very rapidly in a mixture of fibry loam, 
peat, and sand, with good drainage and a liberal supply of water 
at the roots.—A Fern Grower 
RHODODENDRON JASMINIFLORUM. 
The beautiful race of hybrid Rhododendrons so admirably 
adapted for cultivation in a warm greenhouse or cool stove, which 
have been produced by crossing the above-named species with 
several others, renders it of considerable interest apart from its 
own intrinsic merit. But as a decorative plant it is only surpassed 
by some of its progeny, and it is consequently a great favourite 
wherever it is grown. When a plant of moderate size is bearing 
several trusses of its pure white fragrant flowers it is simply 
charming. Such a specimen recently attracted my attention at 
Messrs. Veitch’s Chelsea nursery, where it was flowering in com¬ 
pany with several of the handsome forms raised by Mr. Taylor, and 
among which the one bearing his name was especially noteworthy 
for the size of the flowerhead and the delicacy of the tint. 
The accompanying cut (fig. 27) represents a truss of flowers of 
R. jasminiflorum about the average size, the form of the corolla 
being also well shown. The species is a native of Malacca, where 
it was found by Mr. T. Lobb, growing at an elevation of 5000 feet 
upon Mount Ophir, whence it was sent to Messrs. Yeitch by that 
traveller thirty-two years ago. The species that have been chiefly 
employed with this in raising the various crosses are R. javanicum, 
R. Lobbii, and R. Brookeanum.—L. C. 
The French Vintage. —It appears that, notwithstanding the 
injury done to many vineyards during the exceptionally severe 
winter of 1879-80, the French wine crop for 1880 showed an in¬ 
crease of ninety million gallons over that of the previous year, the 
total of the vintage being nearly 675,000,000 gallons. In the dis¬ 
tricts which have not been materially affected by the phylloxera, 
such as the departments of the Aude and the Haute-Garonne, the 
vintage was above the average of the last ten years (1,170,000,000 
gallons) ; but in the two departments of the Charente, where 
the best brandy is made, in the Lot-et-Garonne, and in several 
others, the ravages of the phylloxera have brought the total down 
to the lowest point which it has ever reached. During the last 
ten years the exports of wine from France have varied between 
90,000,000 and 63,000,000 gallons ; but it should be added that 
during the same period the imports have been steadily rising 
from 2,857,000 to 67,500,000 gallons. The departments which 
produced the largest quantities of wine last year were the Hhrault 
(112,000,000 gallons), the Aude (101,000,000 gallons), the Cha- 
Fig. 2 7 .—Rhododendron jasminiflorum. 
