FANCY PELARGONIUMS. 
97 
FANCY PELARGONIUMS. 
WITH AN ENGRAVINGS OF IVERY’s QUEEN ADELAIDE. 
The above is a term applied by consent to a race of these 
charming flowers, which is now enjoying a considerable share 
of attention in the floral world; it is distinguished from the 
ordinary or pencilled varieties by several characteristics, the 
most prominent of which is the dwarfer branching habit, 
and consequent increase of flower-stems, bearing individually 
smaller blossoms, but so numerous in the truss as to fully com¬ 
pensate for the deficiency in size. Those who apply their obser¬ 
vation with any degree of interest to the progress of horticulture, 
cannot have failed, after a few seasons’ attention, to remark the 
changes or fashions which arise, quite as exclusive for the period 
as those which emanate from the beau monde , and sometimes, it 
must be confessed, scarcely less capricious in effect; by the aid 
of factitious circumstances, occasionally a complete furor is ex¬ 
cited, and, for a time, certain classes of flowers appear to receive 
the united care of the entire flower-growing population; certain 
savans are always found to take an active part in this direction 
of the public taste, as they are pleased to term it, and the thorough 
exclusion of aught but the fashionable flower is a too frequent 
result. 
Perhaps no tribe of plants offers a more striking example of 
the effects of such a system than that under consideration; the 
several phases of attention and neglect are forcibly presented in 
one or other of its sections; and to show both advantages and 
defects, we need no other evidence than the present condition of 
the genus. Some years ago, when geraniums were introduced to 
us as species, collections were formed at no matter what cost, 
and preparations appeared making for a very extended course of 
culture in their natural forms ; the effects of hybridizing, how¬ 
ever, became known, and the productions of Sweet, Davy, 
Dennis, Moore, and others, caused so complete a revulsion in the 
public taste, that scarcely an individual escaped the contagion $ 
species were spurned, and seminal varieties became all in all; 
and this continued with increasing strength till within the last 
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