54 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ March, 
EHODODENDEON OAUOASICUM PICTUM. 
HODODENDRONS easily forced are extremely useful, and if we liave the 
correct name in this—which is that by which it is known around 
Manchester—it is a first-rate sort. We have had a plant of it here 
lately, with about 150 trusses of flowers. This variety may be said to 
require little or no forcing. The plant just referred to was only a few weeks in 
the early vinery, when it was ready for the conservatory. The colour is a pretty 
rosy-pink, and it is, as most Rhododendrons are, a very handsome decorative 
plant. This sort is very readily increased from layers, almost as easily as the 
common i?. ponticum. It is as good a one as could be desired for forcing, being 
such a free flowerer; but it may be too freely used for planting out-doors, as 
from its disposition to flower early it is so liable to be cut down by the late 
frosts.—R. Maokellar, Abney Hall^ Cheshire. 
NOTES ON NEW CARNATIONS AND PICOTEES. 
^^(J’LORISTS will rejoice that, in the floricultural literature of the year, a grand 
Ojt' favourite is treated with the attention it deserves, in the systematic,’ 
practical, and trusty papers by Mr. E. S. Dodwell in the Florist. With 
the help of brother-growers, well known, he has at an early stage given 
that most important way-mark in the direct road of satisfaction and success,— 
“ What sorts to grow.” 
The selection is large enough to be diflicult. Among so many flowers, some 
must, at present, be admitted that are confessedly and variously below first-class 
rank. All will have felt this who joined in Mr. Dodwell’s authoritative list. 
It weighed so heavily upon me, that I broke down under the force of it. I could 
only speak to the best I knew, and, for reasons given below, I felt unable to 
respond to Mr. Dodwell’s call to join in the election. 
The short list which I append is so far from being in opposition to the other, 
that Mr. Dodwell asked me for it. I had thought it of little use just now, as few 
of the flowers are yet in circulation ; they will need no comment when they are. 
Plain and discernible descriptions of flowers, honestly far ahead of the day, might 
be difficult and hardly credited. 
I know it to be the raiser’s wish that his seedlings should speak in his own 
silence, and win their way by their worth and work. I know them all, and they 
would be grander still in fairer gardens, but although I have been a pupil of 
the Simonites in Carnations and Picotees, I do cast aside all natural sympathies 
arising from that position, and speak of these Sheffield seedlings as if I had no 
warm attachment to them for their raiser’s sake ; no knowledge of his faith and 
patience, and long toil of years ; no sense of the modesty that makes him last of 
all florists to boast of his own successes; no acquaintance with that little garden 
which, forty years ago, was a wild, windy, bony strip, on a bleak hill-side ; and 
that stands now the dingiest, most smoke-afflicted, frost-bitten, furnace-blasted. 
