April 28, 1881. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
339 
Complete, a good flower grown at present, and Grimes’ Privateer. 
White edges were augmented by Favourite and Incomparable 
from Taylor the raiser of Glory, and by flowers of less note. The 
seifs have additions, but the best is Othello, a round-petalled 
black flower that was much thought of. 
Another ten years—1811—and the most notable green edge is 
Page’s Champion, once very plentiful, especially with the raiser, 
who was wont to throw surplus offsets into the Thames, but now 
exceedingly scarce, and one of the very few Auriculas difficult to 
grow in an impure air. At this period came Conqueror of Europe 
among the greys with much sensation, and Ashworth’s Regular, 
a small correct white edge, still valued by some old growers in 
the north. 
By 1851 some of Lightbody’s flowers appear, such as Star of 
Bethlehem ; but that and all others were outshone by the first 
appearance in 1846 of Lancashire Hero, Robin Lancashire’s mag¬ 
nificent grey. Like many other light-mealed greys it has the 
power of blooming in a green-edged form, and that generally 
occurs either on a truss from a young plant or one formed very 
early on an old one. The bloom of its middle life at midseason 
is rich silvery grey. This surpassing flower is worth a word by 
the way. When first shown, which was at Rochdale, 1846, it 
was placed second to a flower inferior to it in character—Grimes’ 
Privateer. Lancashire had then eight or ten plants of his seed¬ 
ling, and in his grief hastily sold all for a trifling amount. He 
offered a good deal more to have them back, but could not get 
them. From their first purchaser they passed to Mr. James 
Cheetham, by whom it was eventually sent out. But it is truly 
Lancashire’s Hero, and no name but that of Robin Lancashire 
should ever have been associated with this flower. It is the 
noblest type of an Auricula, and at its best there is no grey better. 
Our opinions are, however, divided, and some of us hold by 
Headly’s George Lightbody as the model. This is a grand flower 
that was sent out in 1861, and the two greys will probably never 
pass out of cultivation while Auriculas are grown. They will 
meet immense competition and have worthy companions, but they 
are Auriculas right properly, and no florist wishes to see them 
discarded, but he will not rest till he has their equals. 
By 1861 we also had Campbell’s Pizarro, long our brightest 
roundest self of soft brown, together with more of Lightbody’s 
flowers ; and Campbell was busy for years at this time trying to 
give us a crimson self of standard properties. His work at that 
extended over many years, and is a good example of a florist’s 
patience. He started with a cross between the old carmine flower 
Lord Lee and a puce-coloured self of Martin’s. At once he got 
the colour but he lost the paste, Lord Lee having none ; and when 
Mr. Lightbody communicated to me his neighbour’s success in 
two crimson seifs, Duke of Argyll and Lord Lome, there had 
been failures past all count. 
2. I pass on now to speak of the Auricula from a florist’s point of 
view, and I cannot better lay the subject before you in the abstract 
than in the words of a brother florist, the Rev. F. Tymons, before 
whom the Auriculas here have often stood for judgment. He says, 
“The points of a good flower are not arbitrary, as the uninitiated 
sometimes say, but really appealing to canons of beauty recognised 
and allowed by all who have made a study of the plant. Thus, as 
in any other matter of beauty or taste, the verdict of those most 
skilled in the subject is that which is entitled to weight. Rigid, 
attendance to these points is of proportionate importance in any 
flower which is largely the creation of skill, stretching forward to 
some ideal standard. Capability of modification under culture so 
as to draw nearer and nearer to that standard is one of the prime 
distinctions of florists’ flowers. Among these none probably are 
more artificial creations than the Auricula. Hence the importance 
of a thorough knowledge of what a good flower ought to be.” 
Auriculas are divided first into two distinct groups, separated 
from each other by the marked feature of mealed or unmealed 
centres. Those destitute of meal are termed Alpines, and their 
essential qualities are the unmealed centre and the heavily shaded 
petal. The highest form in the Alpine is the shaded petal and 
the golden centre, which last is not difficult to obtain except in 
such as have lilac or any shade containing blue. To admit 
shaded flowers of these tints it has been found necessary to allow 
a pale almost white centre, unmealed of course. This section is 
the hardiest and most prolific of all Auriculas, and those grown 
in garden borders are Alpine blood of more or less inferior strain. 
The other group is the Auricula Royal, containing all the edged 
classes, which constitute the highest and most wonderful develop¬ 
ment of this flower. The green edges hold the highest rank of 
all, and are the only class in which a mealy habit of foliage never 
occurs. The contrast of their zones of emerald black and white 
in a setting of silver leaves would be very beautiful ; but Nature 
denies this combination, though often granting the converse in 
white edges with green leaves. The green edges have required 
the most winning, for the edge must be absolutely pure from meal, 
and that has been found a very trying test. Now, however, this 
splendid property is becoming more brilliant and more fixed, but 
that it has been one of difficult attainment is shown by the very 
few true greens among the old varieties. 
The grey edges, a strong class, are those in which a sprinkling 
of meal, like hoar frost upon springing grass, lies delicately over 
a green edge without hiding it further than to give a pearly effect 
as of a silver dew crystallised and secured upon it. 
The white edges are exquisitely fair and lovely—a very favourite 
class. The whole face of the flower except the dark velvet rim of 
ground colour must lie deep under a snowy meal, usually of finer 
grain on the edge than middle of the flower. Good true whites 
have been very few indeed among the old flowers. 
Then follows that beautiful consort of the edged classes—the 
self. This with its densely mealed white centre and colour of one 
velvety unshaded and decided hue is a very different flower from 
the Alpine, and not the least approach of the one to the properties 
of the other can be tolerated. 
Such are the differences that form the class distinctions in the 
Auricula ; we must look a little closer to see what those properties 
are that give expression and harmony to all. The perfection of 
a whole lies in the perfection of its parts. 
I take a single flower part by part. In the centre, the tube 
with its contents—stamens and pistil—is a little member, but one 
of mighty import. No outer brilliancy compensates for a central 
failure here. The whole truth of the flower lies in this little well. 
It should be round and sharply cut and bright. A rich gold tube 
bathes the flower in a sunshine of its own, and lights up into life 
and radiance features that in themselves may be dull and common¬ 
place ; but the tube that is pale or green casts a moonlight effect 
around it that strikes all brightness dim and cold. Not only do 
we dislike, but we distrust a pale tube in the Auricula. A tube 
thus weak is never otherwise strong. Watery colours are associ¬ 
ated with thin textures, and the flower so constituted cannot live 
out half its days. 
Florists are called punctilious and severe—so we are ; but it is 
with reason that we are particular to a point and exacting to a 
shade. The Primulas being dimorphous in the relative positions 
of their stamens and pistil, it has been thought a fanciful and 
narrow choice that we should adhere to that form only in which 
the anthers are set round the mouth of the golden tube and the 
pistil at the bottom, rejecting the longisfyla or pin-eyed arrange¬ 
ment. With what comparison shall I illustrate the reason of our 
choice ? I will take for an example the difference between the 
eye of sculpture and of life. You know the vacant stare of the 
one, the vivacity and soul that speak and sparkle in the other. 
The stony lifeless eye of an Auricula is a pin-eyed tube, with the 
set expressionless pistil, its one hard feature. But where the 
delicate gold-dusted anthers are set round the eye of the flower, 
and the obtrusive stigma is all but sessile on its ovary below, we 
have the fulness, softness, and play of what is happily termed the 
“mossy eye.” It is the counterpart in the flower of the living eye 
that is* so much in the character of a face. 
But I pass on to the next feature on the coloured disc, and that 
is the white circle we term the paste. This is a dry snowy meal, 
and it must be round and broad and bright and dense. Where 
these properties are wanting the flower has, according as the 
faultiness may be, a sleepy, unwashed, ill-tempered, mean, 
cramped, miserly look. Thus a lively paste and a golden tube, 
each sharply cut and circular, are supreme points in a highly bred 
Auricula. 
Now we come to a zone or circle further outwards on the 
corolla. What contrast to snowy meal lovelier and more rare 
could a flower give us than a sudden change to the softest velvet'? 
Such is the texture of the ring of colour known as the ground or 
body. Black has been the most usual, largely because black was 
the favourite colour with so many old growers. There have been 
strange local antipathies to anything but black, a prejudice which 
we hope to see overcome by the winning argument of equally true 
and beautiful edged flowers with blue and with crimson grounds. 
It is true that the best of the old flowers are those with black body 
colour, but the reason is that the Auricula, as if unwilling to cast 
her pearls before the unappreciative, has made few offers of gifts 
that were not sought and would not be valued at their worth. 
But in whatever colour this velvet zone exists it is imperative 
that it be pure—unspotted, that is to say, with any of the meal 
that may lie on the edge beyond it or the paste within. Colours 
also should remain true and fast, and not fade before the other 
parts of the flower into weaker shades. 
The last remaining portion of the markings on an Auricula pip 
is that extraordinary circle of. green, grey, or white that bounds 
