144 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[June, 
to that employed in layering Pinks. The wound is still further extended by bending the 
extremity of the cut shoot, and when this has been done, it is nailed in. The principle of this 
depends on the arrest of the downward flow of sap, and the consequent profit of the fruits 
above the wound. 
- Et is stated in the Moniteur Horticole Beige that many amateurs pro¬ 
pose to abandon the Cordon System of Training Fruit-Trees 
little trees are only productive for the first five or six years after they are planted. 
To meet this objectioUj it is suggested that fresh cordons might be planted every five years 
or so, the cost of which would be but trifling. 
- S^HE Dioarf Aubinel Peachy recently figured by M. Carriere in the 
Revue Hor'ticole^ is a tree of dwarf bushy habit, with glandular leaves and large 
flowers, and produces large globular fruit, of a pale orange colour, marbled with 
red near the summit, and having a shallow furrow; it is a free-stone, with yellow flesh, very 
red round the stone, and of good flavour, and ripens at the end of September. The leaves 
are so thickly set that it is necessary to remove them as the fruit ripens, or it will not colour 
well. The most singular point about this variety is the constancy with which it is repro¬ 
duced by seed. 
- ^HE garden variety of Heliotrope, commonly known as Heliotropium 
Voltaireanum^ should, according to Professor Decaisne, be called H. volterrse, as, 
he says, it was raised in a place called Volterra, in Italy. M. Carriere, however, 
quotes ih.e'Portefeuille des Horticulteurs for 1847, where it is figured and described, in proof 
that it was raised from seed in 1845 by M. Lemaire, gardener to the Countess of Boigne, at 
Chatenay, the birth-place of Voltaire; hence its dedication to the great author. It was 
brought out by Thibaut in 1846 or 1847. 
- En recently communicating to the Botanical Society of Berlin the 
distinguishing characters of the Eastern and Western Planes^ Platanus orientalis 
and P. occidentalism Dr. Bolle relies entirely upon the characters given by Linnseus. 
He enumerates as varieties:— acerifolia, pyi'amidalis, cuneata, digitata, and Reuteri. The 
variety cuneata is of shrubby habit, and Professor Koch, who has had opportunities of study¬ 
ing it in its native country, regards it as a distinct species. The ^axieXjpyramidalis had become 
widely diffused in France, in consequence of its being easily propagated from cuttings, whereas 
the ordinary acerifolia is not. Seedlings of the variety acerifolia often exhibit the character 
of the typical orientalis. The dimensions of a large specimen of P. orientalis growing in 
the vicinity of Berlin are 19|- ft. in circumference a yard from the ground, and 120 ft. in 
height. 
- lET. Louis Van Houtte died at Ghent, on May 9, aged 66 years. He 
was born at Ypres in 1810, and in early life spent some years as a botanical 
traveller, in the Amazon country, and subsequently in Western Tropical 
Africa, after which he founded the vast nursery and establishment at Ghent, with which 
for some years the Government School of Horticulture was connected. The Flore des 
jSer res, carried on by him through 21 volumes, and up to 2,261 plates, gave evidence of 
that comprehensive energy of purpose and power of work which were so characteristic of him. 
In his enormous undertakings he was fortunate in having the active and most intelligent 
assistance of Madame Van Houtte and her two daughters, who, with a son, are left to lament 
with us the loss of one of the most prominent and I’emarkable men in the domain of European 
horticulture. M. Van Houtte may be said to have died in harness, for though with feeble, 
faltering steps, he acted on the Jury at the late Brussels Exhibition, to which, moreover, 
his contributions were not only considerable in extent, but important in quality. 
- William Cutbush, of Barnet, died at Brighton, on May 4, in his 
57th year. He was formerly an exhibitor of hard-wooded plants at the metro- 
pohtan exhibitions, and well known and much respected as a suburban nurseryman. 
