NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 
273 
stance attending a crop of carrots. To get some explanation of these effects, I studied Lee and 
Lindley, Main, Rennie, and whatever other writers on vegetable physiology I could lav my hands on; 
but the conclusions my facts seemed to lead me to were so opposite to every principle seemingly laid 
down by these writers, that I doubted the accuracy of my judgment, and suffered the subject to sleep 
in mv breast for some time. 
v 
“ Shortly after I became attached to the Royal Garden at Kew, the question of the ‘ one-shift ’ 
against the old or ‘ progressive’ system of potting plants, was started by Mr. Ayres of Brooklands. While 
the discussions on these subjects were pending, an intelligent corresponding friend, giving an account 
of a visit to one of the ablest advocates of the one-shift system, highly eulogised the appearance of the 
heaths, but suggested that the success in many instances met with, was owing to the greater care taken 
to render the mechanical condition of the soil more perfect than the followers of the progressive plan 
usually took. The soil, he stated, was, by this grower, rammed into the pots most intensely, and he 
was satisfied this was an essential point in the culture of the heath. While at Kew, the practice of our 
working foreman, in pounding and hammering the soil vehemently around the plants he repotted—so 
different from the practice we had observed elsewhere—afforded us all amusement; yet, that over, 
I am sure all will agree with me, that the majority of the plants in Kew gardens, though necessarily 
wanting room, make as thrifty and handsome shoots as similar plants in any collection. 
“ I -will detail one more fact. While foreman to Mr. Buist, at Rosedale, near Philadelphia, I had 
occasion to pot between two and three hundred dwarf roses, in mid-winter. The only soil we could 
use was frozen through; it was thawed by the fire, and, of course, became perfect mud. This was 
mixed with one-half rotten dung, and the pots quite filled without being subjected to pressure. After¬ 
wards these were placed in a cool pit. They received no water for six weeks. The soil was then 
rammed down as tightly as it could be made, and afterwards well watered. Xo Roses ever made a 
more handsome growth than these did in this firmly pressed and pounded soil. 
“ My practice has been much modified by these and similar observations, though I have no satisfac¬ 
tory explanation of the reason why; but theory must sometimes hang on the skirts of practice. 
“ I may remark, ere I conclude, that agriculturists are, for once, ahead of us. They know the 
preference to be given to firm soil over that which is loose and porous, as appeal's from Stephens’s Book 
of the Farm (Amer. ed.):—‘The reason why I have so frequently recommended the subsidence of the 
land before sowing the seed is, that wheat thrives much better in soil having a little firmness about it, 
than when in the loose state in which the plough leaves it. 
? ?5 
Mm uni Em plnnfs. 
Pachira macrocarp a, Hooker. Large-fruited Pachira {Bot. Mag., t. 4549).—Xat. ord., Sterculiacese § 
Bombaceae.—Syn., Carolinea macrocarpa, CJicimisso and Schlechtendahl; also P. longifolia, and long-flowered P. 
Hooker, l. c., both apparently by error.—A tall and rapid-growing stove-tree, of majestic appearance, furnished 
with large evergreen glabrous digitate leaves, which have oblong-obovate entire leaflets ; and bearing very large 
magnificent flowers, having linear strap-shaped petals, six inches long, reflexed in the upper half, white and 
smooth within, greenish-brown, and slightly velvety on the outer surface; the staminal tube is rather short, 
divided into innu m erable parcels, each separating into eight or ten filaments, which are yellow below, deep red 
above, and nearly as long as the petals : this mass of coloured spreading filaments is very showy. From Mexico. 
Introduced from the garden of M. Makoy of Liege, before 1850. Royal Botanic Garden, Kew. 
Hymexocallis Borskiaxa, Be Yriese. Vanilla-scented Hymenocallis ( [Faxt. FI. Gard. i., 154).—Xat. ord., 
Amaryllidacese § Xarcisseas.—A handsome stove bulb, with dull green leaves, upwards of two feet long, and a 
compressed scape as long as the leaves, bearing an umbel of about seven large flowers, which are white, with a very 
thin transparent entire coronet, and smell of vanilla. From La Guayra. Introduced to the Botanic Garden at 
Leyden in 1846. Flowers ?- 
Ilex microcarpa, Lindley. Small-fruited Holly ( Faxt. FI. Gard., i. 43).—’Xat. Ord., Aquifoliaceae.— 
A hardy evergreen shrub, with entire oval-acute leaves, perfectly smooth, and bearing stalked umbels of very 
small berries. From the north of China. Introduced by Mr. Fortune in 1849. Messrs. Standish and Xoble, of 
Bagshot. 
Quercus enversa, Lindley. Obovate-fruited Oak [Faxt. FI. Gard., i. p. 58).—Xat. Ord., Corylacese.—An 
evergreen tree, apparently with the habit of the common evergreen Oak. The branches are tomentose; the leaves 
stalked, obovate, obtuse, cuspidate, leathery in texture, deep green and shining on the upper surface, covered beneath 
with short glaucous down; the acorns grow in crowded spikes, and are obovate, seated in shallow tomentose cups; 
the male flowers form long downy tails from the ends of the branches; the females are sessile, arranged with 
tolerable regularity in threes. From the north of China. Introduced by Mr. Fortune in 1850. Messrs. Standish 
and Xoble, of Bagshot. 
