54 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ March, 
and finely-sliaped flower of high-class quality, colour bright yellowish-buff, shaded 
with salmon in the centre. Mr. William Ohater is now distributing Octavia and 
William Chater ; also Eleanor^ one of Lord Hawke’s seedlings, a greatly improved 
Willingham Defiance, of a soft pale rosy hue, and forming a fine spike ; this was 
Certificated in 1872. 
Mr. Ohater received the same high award for Firt King^ bright pale red, 
a fine hue of colour and excellent quality, and most effective when shown as a 
spike ; and Mrs. Chater., pale flesh, tinted with salmon in the centre, very bright 
and pretty, and fine spike. Both of these are being distributed. Of other new 
varieties, Mr. Chater has Goliath, vivid scarlet, a large and bold flower, of fine 
quality ; Rosy Morn., clear cerise, large, full, and symmetrical, and a grand spike ; 
Talisman., pale creamy flesh, with a dark base, tinted with crimson in the 
centre; and Vesta., clear lively flesh, a novel shade of colour, large, and of 
first-class quality. 
The intelligence recently given by Professor Thistleton Dyer as to the invasion 
of our gardens by the new cryptogamic parasite, Puccinia Malvacearum, which, 
it appears, is extremely destructive to the Hollyhock, cannot help causing un¬ 
easiness to cultivators of this noble flower. Some twenty years ago, a species of 
disease, something in the form of dry-rot, which eat its way into the leaves 
of the Hollyhock with great rapidity, and worked much mischief, assailed many 
plantations of Hollyhocks, and decimated them something after the fashion of 
the Potato disease. Beds of seedlings were especially open to its ravages. This 
yet lingers among us ; and now to have a second destroying agent appearing, bodes 
ill for the future of the Hollyhock. The breed has become so refined, that it is just 
possible it is, in consequence, more open to the attacks of the pests in question. 
With respect to the new destroyer. Professor Dyer tells us :—“ Unfortunately, 
up to the present time, no remedy for it has been found, and the only safe advice 
that can be given is to destroy the plants, root and branch, as soon as the 
cryptogam makes its appearance, and so do all that is possible in order to stamp 
it out.” But what an uncomfortable out-look for raisers of Seedlings!— R. Dean, 
Ealing. 
DOUBLE-FLOWERED PORTULACAS. 
IAVE these been successfully cultivated in England ? They are wonderfully 
showy in this country, and work in admirably for bedding in the best 
arranged flower-gardens. Moreover, they are especially appropriate as 
flowering-plants where succulents are extensively employed. The colours 
being very bright and varied, and the flowers are double as roses, they make a 
wonderful show. I have a bed sown in May, which commenced to flower early 
in July, and is now (October 14) a mass of flowers, without getting shading or 
requiring any attention, except that weeds were kept down until the ground was 
covered. 
I sow in drills 9 in. apart, and the plants soon form a compact mass of growth 
I 
