1870 J 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
05 
and P/ufw.9, among'gold or bronze ] ' Ami/ Jiichar'ds and Sir R. Napier among golden- 
variegated zonals ; and Miss Kingsbary, a silver-margined sort. 
- ^3 a companion to the Fairy Apple, which we have recently figured, 
we may mention the Imperial Crah, a beautiful deep red fruit, resembling the 
Red Astrachan Apple, of which a prettily executed drawing was exhibited by 
Messi’s. Paul and Son, at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, on the 16th ult. 
— m . Naudin has observed that Palm Trees {Chamcerops') have a 
remarkable power of resisting cold. In a snowstorm which took place last 
January in the Eastern Pyrenees, and in which the snow continued to fall without 
iaten’uption for 44 hours, the Palms were crushed down and flattened by the weight of snow, 
and remained in this state for a period varying from eight to twelve days, after which, a thaw 
supervening, they resumed their usual attitude, neither leaves nor branches seeming to have 
suffered any injury. 
- ®HE Gladiolus Show^ to be held at South Kensington on August 16th, 
has been considerably augmented by subscriptions from cultivators of this flower, 
so that prizes of £10, £6, and £4 are now offered to Foreign growers for 36 cut 
spikes; while nm'serymen are offered £7, £5, and £3 for 36, and £5, £3, and £2 for 18 cut 
spikes; and amateurs have before them the following prizes for competition :—£5, £3, and £2 
for 12, £3, £2, and £l for 9, and £2, £l 10s., and £l for 6 cut sj)ikes. The exhibitors in the 
larger are not to show also in the smaller classes. 
- JEt is stated that Coffee is a valuable Disinfectant, not only rendering 
animal and vegetable effluvia innocuous, but actually destroying them. A room 
in which meat in an advanced degree of decomposition had been kept, was 
instantly deprived of smell on an open coffee-roaster containing coffee being carried through 
it. Another room, exposed to the effluvium occasioned by the cleariug-out of a mamme-pit, 
and in which sulphuretted hydrogen and ammonia in great quantities could be chemically 
detected, had the stench completely removed in half a minute, on the employment of 3 oz. of 
fresh-roasted Coffee. The best mode of using the Coffee is to dry the raw bean, pound it in a 
mortar, and then roast the powder on a moderately-heated iron plate, until it assumes a dark 
brown tint; then to sprinkle it in the sink or cesspool, or lay it on a plate in the room to be 
pm’ified. Coffee-acid or Coffee-oil are said to act more readily in minute quantities. 
- Though pushed out of many bedding arrangements by the ubiquitous 
Pelargonium, the Verbena is, nevertheless, very desirable in certain cases, and 
worth growing, even if only for the sake of affording variety. Mr. John Fraser has 
paid some attention to the selection of such as prove to be first-rate for general bedding-out, 
and the following are some of Mr. Fraser’s “ extra selected ” sorts :— Reine des Roses, rose, 
lemon eye; Moonlight, white; Achievement.^ deep rose; Fox/umier, scarlet; Mnnfe, pink and 
white striped; Blue King., light pm-plish blue ; Princess of Wales, white striped, pale pink; 
King Charming, bright orange-rose, with lemon eye ; Grand Duchess, white, with lilac-crimson 
centre; Crimson King, crimson-scarlet, with lemon eye ; Snowball, white ; Mademoiselle Marie 
RendatUr, purple, lemon eye ; Delicata, rosy crimson, pale lemon eye; Dante, scarlet; Ariosto 
Improved, rich purplish maroon ; Mrs. Holford, white ; and last, though not least. Purple King. 
These are all first-rate, and can be depended upon for a display of bloom. 
- She new Violet, Marie Louise., is announced by M. Van Houtte, in a 
recently issued number of his excellent Flore des Senses, as a variety of great 
merit and excessively odoriferous, the flowers very large and very double, brilliant 
and distinct in colour, having the outer part of a lavender-blue, and the centre white. The 
flower-stalks are long and firm, and altogether, he says, the new variety is one of very choice 
quality, bearing an entirely novel aspect. 
- I^ERE is a Turkish receipt for a Cement used to fasten diamonds and 
other precious stones to metallic surfaces, and which is said to be capable of 
