JUNE. 
113 
AMY HOGG PELARGONIUM. 
WITH AN ILLUSTRATION. 
At the opening of our present volume Avill be found a figure of one of the 
new bedding Pelargoniums raised by the late Mr. Donald Beaton, and which, 
since his death, have passed into the hands of Mr. William Paul, of Waltham 
Cross. With the account of the variety then figured will be found some notice 
of a few of the more prominent of the other varieties to be sent out this season, 
and amongst them that which we now figure, one of the best of the series, pre¬ 
senting a most useful and novel colour for the flower garden, and having all the 
qualities of a first-class decorative plant. The colour may be described as a 
bright purplish rose, and the trusses are abundant, well thrown up, and of 
immense size. The plant itself is strong-growing, the habit spreading, and the 
leaves marked with a zone of darker green. In its class the variety undoubtedly 
occupies the front rank; and we expect it will be largely used in the bedding 
arrangements of the present summer by those who were fortunate enough to 
make its acquaintance last year. M. 
CHRONICLES OF A TOWN GARDEN.—No. XVII. 
The new Collinsia verna (Nuttall’s var.), sent out by Mr. W. Thompson, 
of Ipswich, is, indeed, a “ new form of beauty,” and its character is quite up 
to the high estimate formed of it when seen at the Horticultural Society’s 
Spring Exhibition in March, 1864. My plants were from 6 to 8 inches in 
height, and were covered with beautiful and showy bright azure blue and white 
flowers. It conies into blossom very early, and I venture to predict that it 
will become a deservedly popular spring-flowering annual. The seed of it must 
be sown in the autumn, or it will not vegetate. If sown in the open ground, 
a little light litter should be gently spread over the plants during the prevalence 
of severe weather. For those who have the convenience for so doing, it would 
be best to sow in a cold frame, and transplant to the open ground early in 
March where the situation is very cold and exposed. 
I have now in bloom in a bed on a grass plat some fifty plants of Tulipa 
Gesneriana, and a grand display they make. When I planted the bulbs they 
had administered to them a liberal supply of well-rotted manure, and so luxu¬ 
riantly have they grown, that they have reached a height of from 2 to feet. 
The flowers are astonishingly large and suffused with a brilliant vermilion hue. 
When expanded by the influence of the sun’s rays, they dazzle the eyes of the 
beholder, and they would form fitting drinking-cups for a banquet-table of the 
immortal gods, from which they could quaff— 
“ Nepenthe, soverain drink of grace.” 
I surrounded them with a narrow belt of the common Tournesol double Tulip ; 
but I wish now that I had substituted for them an outer ring of the Dutch 
mixed late border Tulips. I should then have had them all in bloom together, 
and the brilliant hue of the centre bed would have been relieved by the more 
sober colouring of their colleagues. The suggestion is worthy of being treasured 
up for another season. 
Lovers of the early-flowering Tulips (and I would fain hope many are to be 
found among the readers of the Florist and Pomologist), would have 
been, in common with myself, highly delighted with a collection I have flowered 
this season. All the most gorgeous hues of the floral kingdom concentrated 
here, and make a display worthy to be a constituent part in the poetic fancies 
G 
