AUGUST. 
233 
REVIEWS. 
American Plants. By William Paul, F.H.S. Sm. 8vo. Piper, 
Stephenson, and Spence, London; and of the Author, Cheshunt 
Nurseries, Herts. 1858. 
The author of this little work is already well known to the Horticul¬ 
tural world, by his former publications,—“The Rose Garden,” 
—“ Observations on the Cultivation of Roses in Pots ,”—“ Morning 
Rambles in the Rose Gardens of Hertfordshire,”—“ An Hour with the 
Hollyhock,”—and “ The Handbook of Villa Gardening,”—these have 
all emanated from the same pen within the last few years. 
The present pamphlet is devoted to the “ history and culture of 
American plants, with full descriptions of the best varieties,” and 
certainly no description of hardy plants is so justly entitled to be ranked 
in the first class of beauty and usefulness, as decorative objects for the 
garden and shrubbery. After noticing that the term American plants 
is a merely popular one, embracing a rather numerous family of plants, 
some from America, but others too from Asia, and a few from Europe, 
the author proceeds to notice the three species of Rhododendron first 
introduced, namely, R. maximum, ponticum, and catawbiense, whose 
progeny, by successive crossings with the scarlet flowered R. arboreum, 
from Nepal (introduced in 1817), has resulted in the many beautiful 
varieties which now embellish our gardens. Referring to this fact, the 
author says at page 5:—“ If we scan the list which follows these 
remarks, we shall find R. Russellianum, Nobleanum, altaclarense, 
Smithii, and other hybrids of arboreum, bearing white, pink, rose, 
scarlet, and purple flowers. These were an important gain in the right 
direction. Here were kinds of various and brilliant colours living 
perpetually out of doors. How unfortunate that young plants would 
not flower, and that the old ones should retain the habit of their 
arboreum parent in flowering so early in the year that the beauty of 
the flowers was marred or destroyed by the ungenial weather of a 
British spring. Another effort was demanded. The arboreum hybrids 
had to be again hybridized with the later blooming kinds known as 
catawbiense, maximum, and ponticum, and the progeny preserved till 
a race of various colours was obtained blooming in full summertide, in 
the month of June. It is principally since 1840 that the success of 
those endeavours has become apparent, and we have now among the 
late blooming kinds almost every desirable shade of colour. For this 
we are indebted to the skill and perseverance of the hybridist. The 
names of Carton, Smith, Knight, Gaines, Cunningham, Waterer, and 
many others, deserve to be recorded as improvers of the Rhododendron 
in England, and much has been done by foreign cultivators.” 
To the names given by the author as successful hybridists of the 
Rhododendron, most surely should be added that of Burn, of Tottenham 
Park, and Standish, of Bagshot; the former for 30 years or more has 
not failed to produce varieties, second to none in brilliancy of colour 
and lateness of blooming,—the sine qua non of a valuable hybrid ; and 
who, even now, follows up with all the ardour of youth his hybridizing 
