326 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ October 12, 1393. 
parts of the houses. Not only have the plants grown better, but 
they have given much finer clusters. Perhaps others who have 
been so unfortunate as to experience the disease will be able to say 
if they have made any observations with respect to water, whether 
for or against the theory here suggested. And if the explanation 
is wrong perhaps Mr. Abbey is capable of putting us right. 
The point is a cultural one, as I have said, and it opens up the 
question whether the great majority of attacks, both of this and 
other diseases, may not be classed in the same category. When in 
Mr. Bunyard’s nursery a few weeks ago I saw one of the best houses 
of Tomatoes I have ever seen, and his manager, Mr. Bass, expressed 
a strong opinion that good culture was equal to keeping away these 
insidious enemies. He maintains that diseases may be controlled 
with the watering pot and the ventilator, and fears none of them. 
Hiving or withholding water rnd air are, he holds, at the bottom 
of them all, and with judicious management they may be circum¬ 
vented. This is saying a great deal, and may perhaps be going too 
far for many people ; but those who look below the surface will 
not be too hasty or too loud in their denunciations. Why does 
one person resist, and another succumb to, an infectious disease ; 
or why, in one system, does a cancerous growth form and spread, 
while in another it is absent ? It is in all probability from the 
same cause that some plants escape ravishing diseases while others 
fall a prey to them—-namely, from the blood or sap, as the case 
may be, becoming morbid or impure. With pure air, adequate 
but not excessive moisture, and wholesome food, the stream of life 
flows with vitalising force, and the system is fortified against the 
mysterious agencies that hover unseen around and open to the 
unprotected the gate of death.— Hygienist. 
HARDY FLOWER NOTES. 
Still, as Allingham says, “ Autumn’s fire burns slowly through 
the woods,” and they are aglow with the delightful tints of the 
dying leaves fast falling to join the bracken below, which, too, is 
bright with the colours with which it adorns itself ere its season is 
over. Yet to the gardener it seems as if he were standing betwixt 
the autumn and winter, and that the weeping clouds are mourning 
the bright days, and in their grief are striving to quench the 
thoughts with which the remaining flowers would cheer us. It is 
hard when drenching showers and chilly night air are our usual fare 
to drive away the pessimistic feelings all too surely pressing upon 
us. To the lover of flowers, however, pessimism is not a fitting 
mood. Passing clouds of sadness may dim the brightness of the 
sunny thoughts which find their way to his heart, but they are but 
fleeting, and ere long the visions of beauty which are ever present 
to his mind will exorcise the gloom, and he is free once more to 
feel, as Longfellow says, that 
“ For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, 
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.” 
While, as he commits to the soil the bulbs which another year 
will fill him with delight as he gazes upon their hues and forms, he 
has cause to look forward with hope. The present, too, affords much 
joy. The autumn Crocuses are full of chastest beauty as we look 
upon them in clumps in the borders or rockeries, or even when, 
as with the rarer kinds, only a few court the faint sunshine of 
October. The Michaelmas Daisies are beautiful as before, nay, 
shall we not say more delightful now, than when in the eai’lier 
months they had to rival the more gorgeous flowers of summer. 
The late sown annuals are still bright, and seem to say that they, 
too, are well entitled to at least a modicum of praise from our pen. 
The Godetias are still beautiful with their cups of ruby, of pink, 
or of delicate white, thouah they are dripping with wet, and 
thongh the welcome sun shines so faintly upon them. Sweetly 
comes the odour of the fragrant Mignonette from the borders, 
and the Asters with massive yet perfect blooms are beautiful. 
The Cornflowers of various colours, from brilliant blue to the soft 
white or the purple hued, have been of greatest value. But of 
these one might speak for long, and other flowers perhaps more 
seasonable would pass unnoticed. 
Yery charming is a clump of Crocus longiflorus, which has been 
striving unsheltered to face the furious showers which have come 
upon us of late. It cannot be said that it has escaped unhurt, hut 
when planted thickly together these little Crocuses are better able 
to withstand the gales and rains of the autumn. Few there are who 
fail to admire this, exquisite plant with lilac flowers, with yellow 
throat and scarlet stigmas, and possessing the merit of being some¬ 
what irregular in its flowering, some clumps giving flowers much 
later than others. Although a native of South Italy, Sicily and 
other parts in the same region, this Crocus appears to have proved 
perfectly hardy since its introduction in 1843. It is low in price, 
and is one which should be in every garden of hardy flowers. 
According to Mr. Maw’s arrangement of the Croci, C. longiflorus 
belongs to Division I. or Involucrati— i.e., species with a basal 
spathe from the summit of the corm, and to Section II., Reticulati, 
“ with a corm tunic of distinctly reticulated fibres.” Very pretty 
also is C. medius, belonging to the same division and section, but 
having bright purple flowers veined in the inside with deeper 
purple, and with yellow anthers and scarlet stigmas. Not so showy 
as the Long-flowered Crocus, its colour is distinct, and its inclusion 
in the garden is to be desired. 
Among the most graceful of the Coreopsis is the beautiful 
C. verticillata, the Whorled Tickseed, which has been in full beauty 
for a long time, and is extremely attractive with its finely divided 
leaves arranged in whorls, its furrowed stems, and its rich golden 
yellow flowers, not so large as those of some of the family, but 
still about inc’n across. It generally grows 2 feet in height, but 
varies according to the soil and treatment it receives. Introduced 
from the United States so long ago as 1780, it is somewhat 
surprising that it is still so seldom seen. C. verticillata appears to 
be synonymous with C. tenuifolia, although they are frequently 
catalogued as distinct. 
From the fact of its having received a first-class certificate 
when exhibited at the Fern and Begonia Conference of the Royal 
Horticultural Society in 1892, and having thus received what may 
be called the “hall-mark” among flowers, the flowering of 
Helenium autuinnale striatum has been looked for with considerable 
interest in many gardens this year. There would appear to have 
been a great demand for this plant, and in all likelihood it has been 
extensively propagated, and the plants thus rendered temporarily 
weak. This, with the dry season, will account for the comparative 
disappointment felt at the appearance of the blooms when fully 
expanded. A well grown specimen planted in 1892, which I saw 
recently, was so good that one can fully recognise the merits of 
this addition to our autumn flowers, its orange and red flowers 
produced in great numbers rendering it very fine indeed. There 
appeals, however, to be some confusion as to its nomenclature 
which it would be well to have corrected at as early a period as 
possible. When exhibited by Mr. T. S. Ware it was certificated 
under the name of H, grandicephalum striatum. In the Journal 
of Horticulture for September 22nd, 1892 (page 267) an excellent 
woodcut appeared, and in the notice of the plant the name is given 
as H. autumnale striatum. From a careful examination of the 
plant and comparison with a flower of H. grandicephalum which 
has reached me, I believe H. autumnale striatum to be the correct 
name. 
Of Michaelmas Daisies there is no end, and from seed there 
is so much variation that to endeavour to clear up the nomenclature 
of the genus, or to speak correctly of them under name, would be 
a difficult and hopeless task. This, at all events, may be safely 
said, that we have too many to choose from, and that it 
would be well to see the plants in flower and select those which 
commended themselves to the intending purchaser. There are few 
which can well surpass the beautiful Aster amellus bessarabicus, 
of taller growth than the typical amellus, which, it may be, is the 
plant whose root Virgil in his fourth Georgic prescribes for sickly 
bees. Though we would gladly have this association wedded to 
the Bessarabian variety, its beauty in itself is a claim which admits 
of no denial, the fine large heads of deep purple flowers command¬ 
ing admiration everywhere. Very fine also is one grown as 
A., spectabilis, which grows to about 2 feet in height, and has 
extremely deep coloured purple blue flowers, more starry, per¬ 
haps, than A. bessarabicus, but of much deeper colour. I must 
say, also, that I prefer the habit of A. bessarabicus, but A. specta- 
biiis, which comes from North America, is good enough to be 
included in any garden. Of A. ericoides, the Heath-like Michaelmas 
Daisy, it may be said that few more pretty flowers adorn our 
gardens in September and October with its graceful foliage and 
white flowers in endless profusion. These and many other 
Michaelmas Daisies are of the greatest value in the garden of 
hardy flowers, and afford the highest pleasure to their owner. 
The hardy Cyclamen still in flower reminds me that, having 
mentioned in some recent notes that C. gr^cum was in flower in 
my garden, an eminent authority on hardy flowers has in the 
kindest possible manner brought to my notice that what I had 
under this name was only a variety of 0. bedersefolium, which is 
now recognised by botanists as C. neapolitanum. The latter species 
varies so much in foliage that it is difficult to recognise the various 
deviations as belonging to the same species, and as I had several 
