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NOTICES OF SOME REMARKABLE SPECIMENS OF CYCAS REYOLETA. 
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in the following way :—Insignis central; La Princess around it: followed by formosissimus, princeps, 
and Rex rubrorum; completing the bed, two or three rows deep, wtth Virgin Queen.. The bloom of 
Gladioli here this season has been truly grand; and I am sure that if they were to be planted in 
masses, instead of being isolated, as is too frequently the case, they would be much more highly 
esteemed. The fact of their being expensive may prevent many persons from growing them; but this, 
I doubt not, will be soon overruled when they are brought into general favour. 
In raising seedlings in an ordinary way, I should recommend sowing the seed early in the spring, 
in a cold frame, say about March, protecting the frame from frost and keeping it shut up for a fort¬ 
night or three weeks ; in the meantime withhold water, there being sufficient humidity in the soil at 
that season to advance the early stages of the development of the seed ; this caution is of importance at 
this critical period, after which, however, water may be given as circumstances may require. The frame 
must be kept close, giving air by degrees as the season advances, and stimulating them with heat as 
much as possible, consistent with the natural habits of the plant, in order to make the bulbs as large as 
possible the first season ; this will be the means of inducing them to bloom in two years from the seed, 
which is a desideratum. If they are planted the second season in a frame, and slightly excited in the 
spring, the frame being afterwards taken away, and the little wants of the plants—as water, &c.— 
attended to, many of them will unfold their beauties in the course of the autumn. 
NOTICE OF SOME REMARKABLE SPECIMENS OF CYCAS REVOLUTA. 
By Mr. GEORGE TAYLOR, Chats worth. 
f N an article descriptive of M. Van Houtte’s nursery at Ghent, recently published by Mr. Masters of 
Canterbury, in the Gardener's Chronicle, allusion is made to some remarkable Sago Palms, noticed 
growing in the Palm-stove of that establishment. Through the kindness of M. Regel, curator of the 
Botanic Garden, Halle-upon-Sale in Saxony, who introduced, them to M. Van Houtte’s establishment, 
when employed in Surinam as Ins botanical collector, and of M. Hermann Seitz of Munich, who pre¬ 
pared a drawing of them for me, I am enabled to introduce to the notice of your readers the accom¬ 
panying particulars, and representation of these fine specimens which, previous to their importation, 
were detected growing on the site of an ancient cemetry near Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. 
It must be considered a remarkable circumstance, that infinitely more female than male plants of 
Cycas revoluta are known to exist, not only in the gardens of Europe, but also in their native habitat— 
China and Japan, where Thunberg and Siebold found the Sago Palm in its wild state ; but rarely met 
with male plants. In European collections too, but one solitary male specimen has been recognised; 
it flowered in the Botanic Garden of St. Petersburg!!.* Again, Mr. Regel observes, that he himself 
never encountered a single male plant of Cycas revoluta in Surinam ; and, with the exception of one 
plant, which has not yet flowered, all the specimens that gentleman sent home from Paramaribo, had 
previously flowered,—and proked females. 
Perhaps no specimens of the Sago Palm, remarkable for their great height, and extraordinary 
branching habitude, existing in their native climes—certainly not in Europe—can at all compare with 
those here portrayed, and which are still, according to Van Houtte’s advertising catalogue, on sale in 
the Ghent nurseries. 
In Surinam, there were seen some plants in full bloom at four feet high from the ground; but the 
tallest specimen forwarded to Belgium, was nine feet three inches high from the ground to the top of 
the trunk, or base of the fronds (fig. 1). The largest branching specimen exhibited in the engraving 
is eight feet six inches high from the ground to the apex of the head divisions (fig. 2) ; the other 
branching specimen shown in the drawing is eight feet in height (fig. 3). Mr. Regel is himself of 
opinion, from what he observed in Surinam, that the Sago Palm has never attained greater dimensions 
than those just mentioned, either in that or any other country—not even excepting the native habi¬ 
tats of the plant, China and Japan. Moreover, respecting the presumed age of these fine Cycads,— 
supposing that full forty years must have elapsed previous to the formation of the “ annual rings of 
the stem” at present observable, and reckoning the number of the latter as amounting to about sixty, 
they have, in that gentleman’s estimation, passed through all the wondrous phases of vegetable deve¬ 
lopment for a good round century, or even a longer period. 
)\ 
[* A male plant of the Cycas revoluta, is recorded as having bloomed in the collection of Miss Neilson of York, about 1835 [FIor. 
Mag.). This, which was an aged plant, is stated to have been presented by the Earl of Derby to Mrs. Beaumont of Bretton Hall; it 
afterwards came into the possession of Miss Neilson; and subsequently passed to the Sheffield Botanic Garden, where it flowered 
again in 1839. This was stated to have been the first and only male plant that had bloomed in England.] 
