JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
94 
my mind—but perhaps I am not an impartial judge—these plants 
having been grown without stopping or tying, were the best 
Fuchsias I have seen, but they travelled badly and lost many of 
their blooms.—W m. Taylor. 
BOSSLEA TENUICAULIS. 
Several Bossiseas are in cultivation, but they are,compara¬ 
tively rarely seen except in large collections of plants. Yet they 
are well entitled to a foremost position amongst the best of the 
Australian Leguminous plants, as they are mostly free in growth 
and astonishingly profuse flowerers. Two of the most handsome 
and useful are B. linophylla and B. tenuicaulis, the latter being 
represented in the illustration (fig. 22). B. linophylla is a slender 
shrub with linear leaves and bright yellow flowers, which are pro- 
Fig. 22—Bossitea tenuicaulis. 
duced from May to September. B. tenuicaulis is rather more 
straggling in habit, with ovate leaves, the flowers being rich 
yellow streaked with red. It also flowers earlier than the other— 
usually during April and May. Both these, like all the others, 
thrive in a greenhouse temperature, a compost of peat and turfy 
loam and sand, with good drainage, being all the attention needed. 
NOTES ON CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 
LATE VARIETIES. 
Much discussion has taken place in the Journal on the varieties 
of Chrysanthemums most suitable for late-blooming purposes, 
some writers naming amongst others the following as “ Chrysan¬ 
themums to bloom from Christmas to the middle of January : ” 
Fair Maid of Guernsey, Cherub, Arigena, Mrs. Haliburton, Hero 
of Stoke Newington, Princess Teck, Sarnia, Ethel, Grandiflorum, 
Madame Lemoine, Oracle, Baron de Prailly, Striatum, Guernsey 
Nugget, Meg Merrilees, &c. 
It would have been well if we could have learnt from those who 
have lauded any varieties for their late-blooming qualities what 
treatment those varieties have been subjected to during the later 
[ February 1, 1883. 
autumn months, for experience has taught me that the lateness of 
blooming of any variety is more affected by the time that the 
growth was made and the buds formed than with the nature of 
any particular kind. Some varieties are, it is true, later to bloom 
than others when subjected to exactly the same treatment, but 
there is not that difference in the time of their blooming as the 
teachings of some growers would lead the inexperienced to think. 
The names of fifteen distinct varieties are given above, and have 
appeared in print during the past week or two as having pro¬ 
duced flowers late in January. How many of them could not 
have been found plentifully distributed among the exhibition 
prize stands in the middle of November ? I will venture to say 
that fourteen out of the fifteen named would be found in almost 
any detailed account of an ordinary exhibition. The only variety 
I exclude is Arigena, and this is not that it is a late-blooming 
kind, but because it is unfortunately too rough and coarse to be 
admitted in any stand of good flowers. If this is so how can 
they be properly termed “Christmas” or “ January ” varieties, 
unless a special or different treatment is brought to bear on any 
of them to prevent them blooming during November? 
I consider Fair Maid of Guernsey to be an early-flowering sort, 
following always very close after Elaine, which is the earliest of 
all the Japanese forms. Cherub and Mrs. Haliburton, if not early 
bloomers, are by no means late; the first will frequently be found 
in collections at exhibitions, the later not so ofteD, as the blooms 
are somewhat small or medium-sized. Hero of Stoke Newington 
and Princess Teck are counterparts of each other, differing only 
in colour of bloom, and are both useful varieties and late in bloom¬ 
ing, but not so late but that they can be had in November. These 
same remarks apply to all the others named, Grandiflorum and 
Meg Merrilees being the latest of these. Mr. Tunnington exhibited 
at Kingston in his stand for the challenge vase one of the finest 
blooms of Meg Merrilees I have ever seen, and that was about the 
middle of November. 
I will now give my views respecting retarding the plants, and 
desire that all who have produced flowers late to state their treat¬ 
ment. It is well known amongst Chrysanthemum growers that 
to produce the large flowers seen at exhibitions the crown terminal 
bud is selected, and all others on the same shoot or growth are 
pinched off. Now, it sometimes happens that from various causes 
the point of a shoot may be “ blind”—that is, no fully developed 
bud is to be found there, and when this is the case other shoots 
are made later in the season which bloom very late. This in my 
opinion is one way to obtain late flowers ; another way is not to 
disbud the plants but get as late a growth as possible. Where a 
supply of flowers is wanted about Christmas there are many 
persons who plant out during the summer months numbers of 
such varieties as Princess Teck, lift them in the autumn, pot and 
house them. By this means they get a plentiful supply of useful 
flowers from Christmas to the end of December, or even later. I 
have at the present time (January 22nd) several flowers on Meg 
Merrilees, Red Indian, Arlequin, &c., that are merely side flowers, 
produced from buds that were not pinched out at the time of 
disbudding, and have formed after the growth was arrested by 
selecting the crown terminal bud. 
Almost any of the varieties will produce flowers from the laterals 
if allowed to do so, but exhibitors generally very carefully rub 
off all these as they show, in order to throw the strength into the 
bloom that is selected on the crown of the shoot. It is but a very 
short time since the Japanese forms were all considered not to 
bloom until very nearly Christmas, and when the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society offered prizes for competition this was reserved 
until their December meeting. Now we are accustomed to see 
them amongst the very earliest to bloom, and why ? Simply 
because they are disbudded to bloom early in November. If these 
notes are of any service, or may cause other growers to state under 
what circumstances they are able to produce late flowers, or if 
they consider the varieties named are to be termed late-flowering 
kinds, I shall not have penned them in vain.—J. W. Moorman. 
P.S.—When I penned the above lines I had not the remotest 
idea that a paper was so soon to appear on this subject, and it 
will seem I had anticipated some of the remarks of your corre¬ 
spondent “A Grower” on page 67, but in a few particulars we 
vary in opinion. The value of the Pompon Snowdrop is not over¬ 
rated by him. The perfect imbricated character of its miniature 
Camellia-like flowers renders it not only one of the most useful 
but also one of the most attractive varieties in cultivation, and 
only wants to be grown once to be appreciated. Souvenir de 
Jersey, although rightly described by your correspondent with 
respect to colour, &c., does not belong to the Anemone section. 
Isabella Bott and Fleur de Marie are both grand varieties in their 
respective sections, but there are many others that are more free 
to bloom than either of them. 
