200 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ September, 
The Fancy Polyanthus represents a strain of large, finely-formed, bold, and 
striking flowers; some of the varieties have pips as large as a half-crown, stout, 
flat, and finely rounded. It is difficult to say how they first originated, but 
probably something is due to the exertions of the French and German florists. 
The race is of strong and vigorous growth, throwing up stout, stiff, erect flower- 
stalks, bearing bold umbels of flowers. Some of the flowers are self-coloured, as 
white, primrose, golden, purple, &c.; some are parti-coloured, handsomely blotched 
and marked; some are handsomely margined in various ways, and all the flowers 
that have been selected as possessing extra qualities have bold centres of white or 
yellow, and full thrum eyes. For effectiveness, the gold-laced varieties cannot 
touch them, and while the latter admit of but little variation in colour or 
character, the former possess great dissimilarity of character, which is one of 
their most pleasing features. 
If there is one thing more than another that serves to make any particular 
flower popular, it is a place on the exhibition-table. When prizes are offered 
for a certain class of flowers, many are induced to take them in hand and grow 
them ; and this prominence ought to be assigned to the Fancy Polyanthus. The 
Annual Exhibition of the National Auricula Society would be benefited by the 
introduction of some fine Fancy Polyanthuses. 
The laws which govern quality in any flower would apply also to the Fancy 
Polyanthus; size, form, flatness, distinctness of marking, and other points, 
would regulate the selection of varieties, the granting of Certificates, and the 
awarding of Prizes. There is much need for a revival in the matter of the Poly¬ 
anthus, for of the old named gold-laced types, but very few are to be met with, 
and they appear to be becoming scarcer rather than more plentiful. At the Exhi¬ 
bition of the National Auricula Society held at Manchester in April, 1875, 
scarcely more than seven or eight plants competed in the classes set apart for 
them. One occasionally meets with Lancer, Cheshire Favourite, Exile, and 
George IV., but beyond these scarcely another variety that is worthy of culti¬ 
vation. The Fancy Varieties are well adapted to fill up the void, and I should 
like to see prizes offered for them at the meeting of the National Auricula 
Society in 1877. I commend to the attention of the executive this suggestion, 
and were it acted upon, I am sure the result would in the course of two or three 
years prove highly satisfactory. There is no reason why new additions should 
not be made to the lists of Florists’ flowers, so called, and indeed, by this means 
will enterprise be set in motion, and new discoveries be made in the unexplored 
realms of the world of floriculture.— Eichard Dean, Ealing. 
AZALEA INDICA IMBRICATA. 
HIS fine double-flowered Azalea is now pretty well known, having beeri 
seen in flower by many English cultivators, either at' the shows and 
meetings held around London, or at the Brussels Centenary Exhibition. 
Both in London and at Brussels there were suspicions that two somewhat 
