MAY. 
151 
flowered and ornamental variety, having a dark disk, and white florets 
with a moderate tip of blue. Second Class Certificate to Messrs. F. & 
A. Smith, for Cineraria Enchantress, a bright-looking and effective 
kind, useful for decorative purposes, the florets white at the base heavily 
tipped with reddish purple, and the disk dark-coloured. Second 
Class Certificate to Mr. Turner, for Cineraria the Colleen Bawn, a 
variety of diffusely branched habit, the flowers having a dark disk, and 
white florets with slight and rather irregular tips of blue ; a pretty 
decorative sort. Second Class Certificate to Mr. Turner, for Cineraria 
Great Western, a distinct and attractive self-coloured variety, of a 
purple-flushed rose colour, and having a dark disk. Second Class 
Certificate to Mr. Turner, for Pelargonium Prince of Hesse, a fine horse¬ 
shoe-leaved variety, having large finely-formed flowers, of a delicate 
salmon-pink, paler towards the edges. Second Class Certificate to 
Mr. Turner, for Auricula Rev. G. Jeans, a variety with large grey- 
edged flowers, having maroon markings, and an even paste; a useful 
second-rate flower. 
Of this class of subjects there were also shown many others to which 
no awards were made. 
PALMS. 
There are few places in Europe where so good an idea can be formed 
of the luxuriance and variety of tropical vegetation as in the noble Palm 
house of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Standing in the gallery, 
we look down upon Bananas, Spice-plants, and hundreds of the most 
characteristic trees of hot countries. Here we always find some plant 
of peculiar interest in flower or fruit. Last year a member of the 
Cocoa-nut genus blossomed for the first time. This gigantic and yet 
graceful tree—the Cocos plumosa—produced an enormous mass of pale 
primrose coloured flower-spikes, which for several days were as beau¬ 
tiful as a plume of feathers. The flowers have now been succeeded by 
many fruits, which are rapidly progressing towards maturity. The 
Wine Palm, Caryota urens, is now in blossom; this is the first time 
this glorious tree has produced perfect inflorescence in Europe ; it has 
previously made one or two abortive attempts to flower, but never 
accomplished the feat so successfully as at the present time. Another 
species, which is often confounded with this, blooms much more freely, 
and that even in a small state, viz., the Caryota sobolifera. C. urens is 
a common tree throughout the warmer parts of India and the East 
Indian islands. It is a useful as well as ornamental Palm. By simply 
tapping it the natives obtain, every day in summer, from a single tree, 
as much as a hundred pints of a very pleasant beverage; on this 
account the tree obtains the name of the Toddy Palm. Its fruit is not 
edible, the outer covering of it being of so acrid a nature as to blister 
the mouth. Seaforthia elegans is also producing flowers of an elegant 
and delicate rose colour. This is the Australian Cabbage Palm, so 
called because the young leaves form a by no means disagreeable addition 
to the dinner table. The infiorescenoe of Areca Baueri, the Norfolk 
Island Palm, looks like an elegantly-formed piece of cream-coloured 
coral. Sabal umbraculifera, the gigantic Fan Palm of the West Indies, 
