JANUARY. 
15 
we once hoped almost against hope would eventually crown the labours 
of the Council of the Horticultural Society with success, will have 
become realised. May it long continue its now prosperous course, and 
prove the great agent for improving and elevating the national taste for 
horticultural pursuits. 
It is also gratifying to learn that the public taste is year by 
year leading itself to the enjoyment of gardens, in preference to other 
sources of recreation or means of pastime. That a growing feeling for 
the pleasures and enjoyments of garden scenery is fast spreading among 
the masses, the published reports of the numbers who annually visit the 
Royal Gardens at Kew and those of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 
afford conclusive evidence, and show how necessary such places are be¬ 
coming, and the manner in which they are appreciated by the public. 
And as we know that it is impossible for any one to visit either of those 
gardens without receiving some useful or instructive impression, we 
should like to see public gardens attached to every large town as a 
necessary means of promoting and improving a taste for gardening 
and rural improvement generally. 
NEW PLANTS OF 1860. 
The following list, abridged from “ Hogg’s Year Book for 1861,” 
enumerates some of the more important new plants which have come 
particularly under notice during the past year :— 
Alocasia metallica. [Bot. Mag. t. 5190.) Aracese. The corrected name 
of a strikingly beautiful Caladium-like stove plant, with lustrous, bronzy, ovate- 
oblong, peltate leaves, noticed in our last year’s list as Gonotathus cupreus. 
Borneo. Messrs. Low and Co. 
Amygdalus persica V . VERSICOLOR FL. PLENO. {Flore 1319.) Drupaceae. A 
handsome, early-flowering, hardy shrub, with neat double flowers, which are 
sometimes white, sometimes rose-coloured, and sometimes white and rose varie¬ 
gated. Japan. M. Van Houtte. 
Aporocactus flaqelliformis. {Ulllust. Hort. vii. 68.) A new name for 
the well-known favourite window plant, called Cereus flagelliformis, or the 
Creeping Cereus. 
Aquilegia VULGARIS p. CARYOPHYLLOiDES. {Fhr.Mag.t.ll.) Kanuncu- 
lacese. A fine double-flowered variety of the common Columbine, the flowers 
white, striped and flaked with dull reddish crimson and reddish purple. An 
English variety. Messrs. Carter and Co. 
Aralia Sieboldii. Araliacese. A fine, ornamental, greenhouse shrub, 
having glossy leaves, palmately divided into about nine elliptic-lanceolate 
acuminate, coarsely-serrated lobes. The inflorescence forms a large branched, 
terminal panicle; the flowers small, pale-greenish, produced in umbels resembling 
those of the Ivy. Japan. Messrs. Veitch and Son. 
Astelia CuNNiNGHAMiA. {Bot.Mag.t.b\1b.) Juncacese. A curious half- 
hardy or greenhouse perennial, with long, narrowish, silky leaves, and large 
panicles of deep green flowers. New Zealand. Kew. 
Azara Gilliesii. {Bot. Mag. t. 5178.) Flacourtiacese. A handsome and 
peculiar cool greenhouse shrub, bearing leaves of two kinds,—the larger rigid, 
elliptic-ovate, serrated ; the smaller, which are very deciduous, roundish. The 
flowers are small, yellow, numerous, in dense catkin-like elliptical heads from the 
axils of the leaves. Chili. Kew. 
Begonia eximia. {Ulllust. Hort. t. 233.) A pretty dwarf, variegated, 
stove hybrid, having the leaves moderate-sized, red beneath, and silvery upon 
the upper surface, the course of the principal veins marked by reddish lines. A 
Belgian variety. M. VerschaffeU. 
