240 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[October, 
- &N extraordinary form of Hydrangea hortensis was recently described in 
the Gardener's Chronicle. In the inflorescence of an ordinary Hydrangea there are 
attractive sterile flowers and insignificant fertile ones, the sterile ones consisting of 
four or five pink ovate sepals. In the plant referred to, grown by Messrs. W. and A. Brown, of 
Hendon, there were no fertile flowers of the ordinary construction, but a mass of flowers resem¬ 
bling the ordinary sterile blossoms, the constituent sepals of which were quite leaf-like as to form 
and even size, the largest measuring over 2 inches in length, and all presented more or less of the 
beautiful pink colour which renders the Hydrangea so attractive. Moreover, in place of being 
whorled, they were imbricated ; so that in form and position they were leaves, in colour sepals. 
Within the calyx thus constituted were three flowers—the central one with five free, oblong, 
hooded, pink fleshy petals; five hypogynous stamens, and a free ovary of three carpels, with 
the three styles divergent. The ovules were perfectly formed. The lateral flowers were less 
perfect, and seemed to be depauperated inflorescences. 
-- ££here is an error to rectify in the nomenclature of our garden 
Dipladenias. That which has always been known as D. crassinoda , from that 
name having been associated with it on its first introduction, is really Dipladenia 
Martiana,, which name should be adopted. The time D. crassinoda is a tuberous-rooted 
shrub, with thick woody shoots of about two feet high, and has not yet been introduced. 
©fctttmrg* 
- She Rev. Joshua Dix, M. A., died at Langley, near Slough, on September 
12. Mr. Dix was a graduate of Oxford, and for some years filled' a curacy in 
Kent; he afterwards became Rector of Allhallows, in the heart of the City of 
London, which appointment he continued to hold until his death. He had for many years— 
almost since its first establishment—been Chairman of the Floral Committee, in which position 
his love for and his knowledge of flowers, his sympathy with all those having similar tastes, 
his genial good-fellowship, and his impartial judgment, won for him the esteem and regard 
of those over whose deliberations he presided. He maybe said to have died in harness, for ever 
mindful of his allegiance to horticulture and horticulturists, he contracted what has proved to 
have been his last illness on an occasion when he bore witness of the faith that was in him by 
performing the last sad rites over poor John Gould Veitch. It is fitting that a clergyman who 
had so greatly identified himself with the progress of horticulture should utter the solemn 
words of our burial service over the grave of one who may himself be reckoned among the 
martyrs of horticulture ; but it is sad to recall that in the exercise of that duty our friend was 
stricken with that sickness from which he never thoroughly recovered, and in consequence of 
which we now have to lament his decease. A subscription has been set on foot for the purpose 
of placing a Memorial Portrait of Mr. Dix in the meeting-room at Kensington. 
- J^r. Milde, a German botanist, wbo has made many important contribu¬ 
tions to cryptogamic botany, and whose Filices Europcea et Atlantidis , and obser¬ 
vations on new Ferns, entitled “Reliquiae Mettenianae,” the latter printed in 
recent volumes of the Linncea , were especially valuable to the students of Ferns, 
is reported to have died recently. 
- 3$ames de Carle Sowerbt, Esq., the first Secretary of the Royal 
Botanic Society, Regent’s Park, died on August 26, at the advanced age of 84. 
Mr. Sowerby belonged to a Norwich family, many members of which have distin¬ 
guished themselves by their devotion to various branches of science, and to the 
pictorial illustration of natural objects. 
- ^rofessor Lecoq, of Clermont, died recently in his 70th year. He 
was well known as a geologist and naturalist, possessed of a wide range of know¬ 
ledge ; his magnum opus being a work on the geographical distribution of plants. 
