• Elate 162 . 
* 
« % 
RHODODENDRON, COUNTESS OF DEVON. 
In our July number (Plate 155) we figured a ver^beautiful 
new Rhododendron, named m Prince of Wales , and *we now add 
<k 7 - * m e/ 7 
to it another of an entirely different character, although of very 
great beauty, one of the race of hardy varieties, for the,oppor¬ 
tunity of figuring which we are indebted to the old and well- 
knqwn firm of Lucombe, Pince, and Co., of Exeter. 
Hardy Rhododendrons are amongst the most serviceable and 
ornamental of our flowering shrubs, enduring, as they do, our 
severest frosts, and bearing with much patience even the smoke " 
and dust of our great metropolis; and we have therefore often 
wondered why persons should so persistently attempt the 
growth of plants which will not submit to these conditions, and 
neglect so showy a shrub as the Rhododendron is. The failure 
of many things which have been tried under the most favourable 
auspices at South Kensington, and elsewhere, ought not to be 
without its lesson on those who are desirous of maintaining some 
recollection of the country during their sojourn in London. 
The past season has been a very unfavourable one for the 
blooming of the Rhododendron; owing, we presume, to the wet 
and sunless summer of the preceding year, the bloom-buds had 
not been matured. To what extent this was the case may be 
gathered from the fact that one of the largest of our great 
growers, who intended to have had an exhibition of this flower 
at the South Kensington Gardens, was unable to do so; while 
in many private gardens there was hardly a head of bloom to 
be seen. But these are failures which take place periodically 
in almost every flower, and no way detract from the merit and 
usefulness of the plant. 
The variety which we now figure is one of those very beau- 
