1875. ] 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
191 
most effective bedding plants used in tlie flower garden at Gunnersbury Park, 
Acton. The plants are raised from cuttings, not from seeds ; and plants so ob¬ 
tained make but a spare growth, and flower with great profusion throughout the summer. It 
supplies an extremely pleasing and effective hue of colour. This was one of the subjects 
used for bedding some thirty or forty years ago, and may well take rank amongst neglected 
subjects of the highest merit. There used to be a very handsome variety with variegated leaves. 
- @The Seville Early Longpod Bean maintains this season the high 
character it bore last year when grown for trial at Chiswick. Mr. Barron con¬ 
siders it to be at least four days earlier than the Early Longpod—an important 
consideration with market-gardeners; and the pods are long, broad, and very handsome. It 
has, moreover, an additional value as an exhibition variety for early shows. Without being 
a heavy, it is yet a profuse cropper, and the character of the foliage is quite distinct. It is 
also a Bean that especially deserves cultivation in private gardens. 
- 2The Phormium tenax Colensoi has, we learn, been flowered by Mr. 
W. E. Gumbleton, at his residence, Belgrove, Queenstown. The plant is bloom¬ 
ing in the open air, in a sheltered glen, close to the sea. 
- Amongst the meritorious novelties of the season, Clematis Willisoni, 
from Mr. Willi son, of Whitby, may be specially noted. It is a double-flowered 
variety of the type of Countess of Lovelace, though considerably paler in colour, 
having large guard-sepals, eight in number, resembling those of the ordinary single- 
flowered sorts, and filled in the centre with a tuft of shorter and smaller sepals replacing the 
stamens. These smaller sepals, which are somewhat spathulate in figure, with a short acumi¬ 
nate apex, become narrowed at the base into a claw, which is shorter in the lower and about 
half an inch long in the ripper series, the tuft consisting of about five tiers of these petaloid 
organs. The colour of the guard sepals is a delicate mauve, deepening to a full mauve at 
the base, as seen when the inner petal-like bodies are removed, these latter being of a deli¬ 
cate mauve-lilac or silver-grey, which is the tone of colour generally evident in the flower. 
The flowers, which Mr. Willison states are sometimes 8 in. to 10 in. across, and quite full, are 
intermediate in colour between the bluish Countess of Lovelace and the pale lavender-tinted 
Belle of Woking, coming near the hue of Lady Londesborough and Albert Victor. 
- @The Moniteur Horiicole Beige publishes the following simple mode of 
Blanching Endive :—Plant in very well-prepared sojl, at six inches apart, instead 
of in the usual more open way ; when established, enclose each bed with planks 
eight inches wide, set on edge, to prevent the outer plants spreading. When vigorous growth 
commences, press the plants close together, and in this way they blanch without further 
attention, the leaves not being injured as they sometimes are in tying, so that they keep much 
better in the blanched condition. 
- JFrom Australia, Baron von Miiller has sent over dried specimens of 
Correa Lawrenceana , with flowers as brilliantly red as any of the showiest varie¬ 
ties of C. speciosa. C. Lawrenceana in its ordinary state has greenish-yellow 
flowers, and occupies the wet subalpine ranges of Gippsland, towards Cape Otway, and also 
of many parts of Tasmania, where Mr. Lawrence discovered it nearly forty years ago. It is, 
moreover, far more hardy than C. speciosa, and a far taller bush, attaining a height of 20 ft. 
and perhaps more, the lustre of the dark green surface of the leaves rendering it a most 
eligible object for cultivation. Add to this, that it flowers nearly through the year, that the 
flowers stand generally in clusters, and that now we have a crimson variety, and it will bo evident 
that an important horticultural acquisition has been gained. This, adds Dr. Mueller, “ I intend 
to render accessible to Europe. In my recent journey to Mount Kosciusko from the Avest (I 
went to that Mount from the south in 1854) I saw only plants of C. Lawrenciana with red 
flowers, whereas on the southern brooks I. saw always only the variety with the greenish 
flowers. Possibly the plant may prove hardy in Britain, as it ascends here to 4,000 ft.” 
— fUtt. Ward, of Longford Castle Gardens, writing of the Cultivation of 
Horseradish, which, he maintains does not receive the attention it deserves, describes 
