June 1, 1882.] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
443 
water, as everything depends on the state of the beds or borders.— 
Hortus. 
MR. PENSON’S AURICULAS. 
In your issue of May 18th a correspondent gave a short notice 
of the collection of Auriculas cultivated by one of our veteran 
florists—indeed, I suppose the oldest Auricula grower we have—• 
Mr. Alexander Mciklejohn of Raplock. I have lately visited that 
grown by one of our youngest fanciers—one who showed his 
powers at the late Auricula Show at South Kensington by carry¬ 
ing off five out of the eight prizes for grey-edged varieties, and 
the first in fours and twos. At the time I said, to my mind, they 
were among the best-grown Auriculas in the Exhibition, and I 
am more confirmed in my opinion now that I have seen them in 
their home at Ludlow, and a brief notice of them may not be un¬ 
interesting, and perhaps encouraging, to young growers who are 
deterred by the supposed difficulty of getting up a collection. 
It is not more than four years since Mr. Penson commenced to 
grow them. His purchases (I believe from Mr. Douglas mainly) 
consisted of one plant of each variety ; yet so well has his earnest 
and intelligent gardener, Mr. Collier, worked that he has now 
sixteen plants of George Lightbody, twelve or fourteen of Lanca¬ 
shire Hero, eight of John Meiklejohn, &c., the plants of which— 
altogether there are about five hundred—are in the most vigorous 
health, and give promise of future success. They are grown in 
frames raised from the ground on legs, against a wall (at least 
this is their summer quarters) facing the north, so that the pots 
are about at the level with the hand, and are easily manipulated. 
The lights are on hinges, and are, when it is not raining, fastened 
back against the wall. I am quite sure that the Auricula thrives 
under various conditions. Some persons grow them in small pots, 
some in large ; some in glazed pots, some in unglazed ones, and 
grow them equally well. If good compost is obtained and drain¬ 
age carefully attended to, then I believe they will be found to 
succeed. The compost that Mr. Collier uses is three parts fibrous 
loam, one part old hotbed manure, one part leaf soil, charcoal, 
and a little sharp sand. The drainage is carefully attended to 
and the potting firmly done. Mr. Collier is this year using smaller 
pots than before—smaller in diameter but deep, called up in Shrop¬ 
shire “Long Toms.” He washes all the roots of his plants, cuts 
the tap, and dresses the wound with powdered charcoal ; and here 
I received a “ wrinkle.” When there are any eyes on this tap root 
he pots it, and from these has obtained many plants ; in fact, if 
the rate of progress is maintained, and I do not see why it should 
not be, Mr. Denson’s collection will soon be one of the very best 
we have. In some of the leading varieties he is strong, but not so 
in others, such as Colonel Taylor, Prince of Greens, &c., the fact 
being that these are shy in increasing. If they were otherwise 
they would soon be in larger numbers ; while some, of which he 
has several plants, such as General Kelli, Rev. G. Jeans, Mrs. 
Smith, Vulcan, will be discarded to make room for them. 
Mr. Penson’s garden is charmingly situated, almost in the very 
centre of the town ; but what a town ! There are few places in 
England that can compete with Ludlow in beauty. Its magni¬ 
ficent church, built on the top of the hill, and in the very centre 
of the town ; the grand old castle with its picturesque surround¬ 
ings ; the river flowing round a great part of the town ; the foliage 
which springs up in every quarter amongst the buildings ; the 
absence of factories, with their concomitants of tall chimneys and 
smoke—all combined to make it most charming, reminding one 
more of the city of Berne (on a small scale) than any place I have 
ever seen. Here in a delightful old house, situated close to the 
castle walls, I received most kind and hearty hospitality, and I 
can only hope that its accomplished owner will long live to defeat 
me and many others in the tilted field, and “ bear his blushing 
honours thick upon him.”—D., Deal. 
NEPENTHES AT HOME. 
( Continued frontpage 422.) 
Another epiphytal species of graceful form and colour most 
lovely—red and green—is found at a higher elevation, 6 to 
8000 feet. It is of lax habit, stems 30 feet in length, rambling 
among the wet mossy branches of low trees. This is N. Ed- 
wardsiana, and its largest pitchers are graceful as the torso of a 
Venus modelled by Phidias or drawn by Apelles. They are often 
16 to 22 inches in length, with a delicately frilled rim to the 
mouths of the graceful urns. Alas ! it still may only be seen at 
home within sound of the great fall of Kina Balu, which pours 
down a silver streak of water over a precipice clear 1500 feet fall 
into a deep rocky basin below. The streak of water is fully 2 yards 
wide, and as it plunges into the pool below churns its contents into 
milk-white foam. The vegetation nigh to the pool is dense and 
rank, and the foothold treacherous. To get a clear view I climbed 
an overhanging tree. The roar of the water crashing down was 
awful, and after looking down into the foaming vortex into which 
the fall descended for a few seconds I was glad to descend ; the 
roar was deafening, and all sense of reality seemed to vanish and 
leave one in a dream. I was glad when I emerged from the 
spray and could hear my own voice again, which was quite 
impossible to do when near the fall. 
Here and there along our route, especially alongside the little 
streams which trickle down the hillside Rice fields of the Kiau 
villagers, we came upon isolated specimens or little groups of 
graceful slender-stemmed Tree Ferns (fig. 88). How they had 
escaped the fires by which the forest had been cleared off the land 
often puzzled us ; yet the fact remained that they had been spared, 
and very fresh and cool they looked, their roots buried in the 
moist earth near the rills, and their feathery plumes shimmering 
in the blazing sun. They were sufficiently large and numerous 
Fig. 88. 
to give quite a characteristic appearance to the sloping Rice lands 
on the hills, as Bamboos and Palms do to the alluvial plains 
beside the rivers at a lower altitude. Take away from a tropical 
forest Palms, Tree Ferns, Bamboos, and that most noble of all 
fine-foliaged plants the Banana, and its “ tropical ” character is 
gone. The remaining vegetation, so far as its geueral or distant 
effect is concerned, is that of any European forest of deciduous 
trees as seen during summer. One type of tree beauty is absent 
from the tropics proper—that of the Pine and Fir woods of 
Northern Europe and America ; and the fact brings home to us 
the great truth, that while art enables us to grow tropical Orchids, 
Ferns, and Nepenthes in our cold climate—the world’s flora in 
fact—it is powerless to give the fragrance of Pine woods, the 
sparkle of spring-flowering bulbs, and the treasures of Alps and 
Apennines to those who live in the tropics. Hence tropical 
gardens, while their luxuriance is simply wonderful, are far less 
rich in species than are our own. 
Another phase of the question, however, is perhaps worth a 
thought. Tropical vegetation must ever to a great extent be 
imprisoned—pent up beneath a crystal roof in European gardens ; 
