April 22, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
317 
and as a consequence of this confusion a stand of Hybrid Perpetuals was 
disqualified because it contained it, while at another place it received the 
National Ross Society’s medal as the best Hybrid Perpetual! It is a 
very beautiful Rose for those wbo can grow it, but the general verdict 
upon it is that it is a most difficult Rose, never making much wood, and 
delicate in habit; in truth there are not many of these so-called Hybrid 
Teas that have found very extended favour, and Roses have been so inter¬ 
mixed by hybridisation, whether natural or artificial, that it is exceedingly 
difficult to say what blood they do or do not contain. One of the foreign 
growers is, I see, now crossing some of the single Roses with double 
varieties, and professes to have obtained some varieties that are to be 
worth gi owing. Nous verrons. We have to take a great pinch of salt when 
we try to digest many of these high-flown descriptions. As I did not 
11 go in” for exhibiting, I did not last year prune so hard as the year 
before, wishing to obtain larger plants and more bloom. There is little 
doubt, I think, that hard pruning will be the rule this season, as Jack 
Frost must have laid his hand very heavily on the young wood, especially 
where it is very “ lishy,” and it is of no use leaving any wood where the 
pith is discoloured. My plants were well protected with litter, but there 
was little need for protection last season. When the plants were pruned 
in the spring the long litter was all raked off, made up into a heap, and 
made a capital bed for growing Vegetable Marrows ; the short manure 
was all gently forked in. As I have frequently said, my soil is not very 
good for Roses, but it has been much improved by the addition of some 
clayey loam. The greater portion of my plants are from three to four 
years old, but, as I cannot enlarge my b orders, some are taken out every 
year to make way for some of the newer varieties. Of these I had several 
last year, although nothing was very remarkable amongst them. Mr. 
Laxton’s two seedlings, Bedford Belle and Gipsy, were not sufficiently 
strong to enable me to judge whether they will be of value as exhibition 
or garden Roses. Lord Frederick Cavendish is a very brilliant coloured 
Rose, and bears out the good character it acquired on its first introduction. 
Ulrich Brunner was very fine with me, as it was everywhere last season, 
while the fine dry season suited Merveille de Lyon and Violetto Bouver 
to a nicety, and we had many fine blooms of them. Grace Darling I 
had not sufficiently strong plants of to judge as to its qualities, for where 
the plants were either small or had to be lifted, the long dry time was very 
much against their growing much. It seems, however, to be a very pro¬ 
mising Tea. Of Madame Cusin and Madame de Watteville I have already 
alluded to. There is another which I had, but not before it was too late 
to judge of it, the new American Rose Sunset, but of which I am inclined 
to form a high opinion. It has well been described as a very double 
Madame Falcot, and is a sport from that grand yellow Rose Etoile de 
Lyon, than which we have no finer yellow garden Rose. I cannot say 
that as yet the descriptions of Gloire Lyonnaise have been in the faintest 
degree approached in reality ; there bas not been in any bloom I have had 
of it, or any that I have seen, but the very faintest sovpgon of yellow in it. 
It has been often said that however beautiful the Rose may be, its 
season is a short-lived one. I cannot and do not think this is a correct 
statement. It is no doubt true that, like most flowers, it has its special 
season when it is in the height of its glory, and from the beginning of June 
to the end of July, according to the locality, the “ feast of Roses ” is held, 
when the rosery is all aglow with beauty and delightful in its fragrance ; 
but as I have shown, there is to those even whose space is limited an 
opportunity of antedating that period by the wall Roses and Teas, and 
although the three weeks in which the rosery is in its full beauty seems 
but a short time, we must remember that for a longtime afterwards Roses 
are to be obtained in great beauty. The Hybrid Perpetuals throw out a 
second stock of young shoots, and these have given me some nice blooms 
on through July and August, the greater proportion not being equal it is 
true to the first blooms, but still fre-h and fragrant; while the Teas afford 
an almost never-ending supply of beautiful and fragrant blooms, and 
where these are grown in any quantity they are to be had up even to the 
dark days of November. I had them myself in my own small garden, 
and so 1 am sure that where they are grown in larger numbers it can be 
easily done. 
I have not as yet done much in the way of single Roses, but hope to 
try a few of them. One, indeed, I had in my small rockery, R >sa pyre- 
naica ; but it became such a nuisance that I had to take up some yards 
of the rockwork and grub it all out—at least, I hope I have done so. 
But it is a most persistent interloper, getting in under the stones and 
throwing up its suckers in the midst of some of your most dearly valued 
Alpine gems. Rosa rugosa and rugosa alba I have grown, but not as 
well as I could have wished, for they are very ornamental in foliage, 
flower, and berry. I have no doubt that the excellent paper of Mr. Girdle- 
stone, and the attention which has been drawn by him and others to 
the “ species ” of Roses, will bear good fruit in the future. 
There is one misfortune which I have to suffer each year, as far as my 
Rose garden is concerned—viz., that I am so much away from it in the 
blooming season. The attendance ‘‘on circuit” necessitates this, and I 
often grieve over it. However, if I do not enjoy my own Roses so much 
as I could wish I have the pleasure of seeing better blooms of other 
growers. The time will doubtless come when I shall no longer be able to 
gad about as I now do, and then I may be perhaps able more thoroughly 
to enjoy my own garden.—D., Deal. 
HYBRID ORCHIDS. 
A few additional notes respecting the list of hybrid Orchids given 
last week may be useful. 
It will be seen from this list that while bybridisers have been very 
successful in some genera they have not obtained many results in several 
others, and in a few they have hitherto failed to secure any hybrids, 
lhus of Aerides, Anoectochilus, Goodyera, Phalmnopsis, and Tnunia one 
hybrid each has been raised. Of Chysis and Phajus two each, of Masde- 
vallia and Zygopetalum three each, of Laslia seven, Dendrobium and 
Calanthe nine each, Oattleya twenty-four, and Oypripedium fifty-three, 
nearly half the total number having been obtained in the last-named 
genus. In the case of the Cattleyas Mr. H. J. Veiteh has observed that 
the “ members of the Iabiata group and also the Brazilian species with 
two-leaved stems, aa C. intermedia, C. Acklandi®, &c., cross freely with 
each other and the Brazilian Laelias ; but neither the Cattleyas nor the 
Brazilian Laelias will cross fretly with the Mexican Lidias, such as 
albida, autumnalis, majalis, and acuminata, except L. anceps.” From 
the same authority we learn that the East Indian Cypripedium 3 , though 
crossing readily with each other, do not cross so freely with the South 
American Selenipediums ; and though plants have been raised from 
crosses between these two sections, they have not flowered yet. No one 
appears to have succeeded in flowering an artificially raised hybrid 
Odontoglossum up to the present time, although so many are regarded as 
probable natural hybrids. Mr. Cookson obtained some seedling Oiouto- 
glossums from a cross between O. gloriosum or 0. Uro-Skinneri and 
0. crispum, but they subsequently died. The late Mr. Spyera, when 
gardener to Sir Trevor Lawrence, obtained seed from crosses between 
O. vexillarium and other species, but he informed me that he could 
obtain no seed from crosses between O. vexillarium and the Miltonias ; 
and I believe it was from the same source that Mr. Bentham obtained 
the statement he inserted in the “ Genera Plantarum ” to that effect, and 
to which Mr. H. J. Veiteh objected as contrary to their experience. He 
has found that by crossing O. vexillarium and Miltonia spectabilis seed 
was produced, though it could not be secured from crosses with any other 
Odontoglossum. It does not appear, however, that seedlings have been 
raised in any case. 
As examples of bigeneric hybrids we have crosses between Anoecto¬ 
chilus and Goodyera and vice versd, Laelia and Cattleya, Phajus and 
Calanthe, Calanthe and Limatodes and the reverse, though in the last 
instance Limatodes is now referred to the genus Calanthe, and Cattleyas 
and Laelias are very closely allied. Many strange crosses have been 
made in Messrs. Veitch’s nursery. Thus plants have been raised, but not 
flowered, from crosses between Cattlaya Trianae and Siphronitis grandi- 
flora, C. Trianae and Brassavola Digbyana, and C. intermedia and 
Sophronitis grandiflora. Capsules of apparently good seed have been 
had from crosses between Acanthophippium Curtisi and Chysis bractescens, 
Bletia hyacinthina and Calanthe Masuca, Chysis aurea and Zygopetalum 
Sedeni, Odontoglossum bictonense and Z. maxillare, Z. Mackayi and 
Lycaste Skinneri. Abundance of seed has also been secured by crossing 
Z. Mackayi with Odontoglossums and other genera, but the seedlings 
have invariably proved to be Z. Mackayi. 
The principal hybrids mentioned in the list under Mr. Seden’s were 
raised by the following orchidists :— 
Anguloa media, by J. C. Bowring, Esq.; Calanthe bella, though sent 
out by Messrs. Veiteh & Sons, was not raised in their nursery ; Calanthe 
Alexanderi and Cooksoni, by N. C. Cookson, Esq., Wylam-on-Tyne; 
Calanthe porphyrea, by Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P.; Calanthe 
sandhurstiana, by Mr. P. H. Gosse, Sandhurst, Torquay; Cattleya calum- 
mata, by Mr. Alfred Bleu, Paris ; C. Mitcheli, by Mr. Mitchell, gardener 
to Dr. R. F. Ainsworth; C. veriflora, origin unknown, bought as a seedling 
at Stevens’ Rooms by Sir Trevor Lawrence; Cypripedium Ashburtonise 
and Crossianum, by Mr. Cross, gardener to Lady Ashburton, Melchet 
Court, Romsoy; C. Io, by N. C. Cookson, Esq.; C. Leeanum, by Sir 
Trevor Lawrence ; C. chloroneurum, C. meirax, C. melanophthalmum, 
C. politum, and 0. Williamsianum, by R. Warner, Esq., Chelmsford ; 
C. conchiferum, C. gemmiferum, and C. stenophyllum, by J. C. Bowring, 
Esq.; C. Swanianum, by Mr. W. Swan ; C. Laforcadei, by M. Bauer, 
Paris; C. Sallieri, by M. Godefroy-Lebeuf [M. Bergman, in “Revue 
Horticole,” October, 1885] ; C. Seedling No. 1, M. Bleu, Paris ; Dendro¬ 
bium Ainsworthi, by Dr. R. F. Ainsworth; D. Leachianum, by Mr. W. 
Swan, when gardener to W. Leach, Esq., Fallowfield, Manchester; 
Masdevallia Fraseri, by Mr. Fraser, Derncleugh, Aberdeen ; Thunia 
Veitchiana or Wrigleyana, by Mr. George Toll, Manchester ; Zygopetalum 
Clavi, by Colonel Clay, Birkenhead. 
The natural hybrids 'are mostly introduced forms of exotic Orchids, 
which are found to be so clearly intermediate between the species named 
as parents, that they are regarded as the probable result of hybridisation 
effected by insect agency. Some European forms are, however, included, 
as in the genus Cceloglossum, Gymnadenia, Nigritella, and Orchis, which 
have been noted and described by continental botanists.—L. C. 
THE PRIMULAS. 
(Continued from page 292.) 
P. TYROLENSIS, Schott .—This is a fairly common plant in 
English gardens now, although it rarely flowers so well as it does 
in its native habitats. On the rockery, even where fully exposed, 
it grows very freely, forming loose tufts, the stems being apt to 
become leggy unless pegged down or surrounded with stone 
debris. It is distinct from all the other Primroses, and easily 
recognised, from one of the bracts at the base of the flower 
attaining an uncommonly large size. With us it grows from 
3 to 6 inches in height; the leaves ovate or elliptic, hairy, but 
showing more distinctly at the margins, which are finely serrated 
