186 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ August, 
decorator, and developes a grace and beauty, and even a richness of colouring 
hardly ever seen when the plant is either trained against walls or on trellises. 
Plants for the purpose of thus furnishing walls should be frequently stopped 
when in a young state, so as to force them to break into six or more shoots; the 
more shoots—and I had almost written, the weaker—the more effective the 
Cissiis becomes as a pocket-plant. The effect of numbers of Cissiis in full growth, 
with all its tendrils and young leaves intact, looked at in contrast, say, with plants 
of Pothos argyrea^ Maidenhair^ and other delicate ferns, is rich and satisfying 
in the extreme. Caught in the light of the setting sun, or between the eye and 
the light at any period of the day, perhaps there is no plant so exquisitely 
beautiful. The grace and elegance of the Cissns treated in this way are as 
charming as the colouring is rich. The Cissiis looks well on any rough or 
rusticated wall, but when light stone, spar, scoriae, or pieces of white coral, or 
marble, or ice-like stalactites, are employed to break or enrich the surface of 
walls, rocks, &c., the effect of the graceful spray and beautiful leaves of the Cissus 
is the more strikingly beautiful. 
As few plants are more easily propagated, there can be no difficulty in fur¬ 
nishing walls in this way. There are numbers of attempts of this sort on low 
walls, but in many old-fashioned houses, if sufiScient material could be found, with 
taste to use it to artistic advantage, the whole of the back-wall of a lofty roofed 
house might be rusticated and covered with creeping plants, ferns, &c. The 
higher the plants above the eye, the more pleasing to note the very varying play 
of light and shade on and among them; and few plants can bear the ordeal of 
being looked up to better than the Cissns discolor. —D. T. Fish, Ilardiciche. 
THE NATIONAL CAENATION AND PICOTEE SOCIETY'S 
SOUTHERN SHOW. 
« HIS Exhibition, so long looked for, has come and gone, and despite the 
difficulty of a season unpropitious beyond all living memory, may fairly be 
f said to have been a great success. If we may paraphrase the language of 
an old •wi’iter, who declared of his hero, he had “ compelled death to wait 
on victory,” we may say with truth the cultivators of these lovely flowers had 
‘‘ compelled success to wait on effort,” for never were finer specimens seen than 
those produced by Mr. Turner and Mr. Douglas, whilst those of the other contri¬ 
butors, who had less convenience for the development of the blooms, were most 
commendable. Carnations and Picotees and Eoses were in pleasant alliance, 
and this, with the kindly feeling displayed by the several growers, and the admirers 
of the flowers, contributed to produce a meeting, the pleasure of which will be 
long remembered. Florists came from all points of the compass, the North being 
well represented by Messrs. F. D. Horner, B. Simonite, Eobert Lord, George Eudd, 
and Thomas Bower. Eleven exhibitors took part in the competition, three others, 
Messrs. Llewelyn, of South Wales, Jones, gardener to J. J. Colman, Esq., M.P., of 
Norwich, and Tyler, of Cambridge, being unable at the last moment to contribute, 
