12 
COMPANION TO THE FLORAL MAGAZINE. 
Then there is a hybrid China, Triomphe de Bayeux, of most robust 
habit, and producing an abundance of white flowers like Tea Roses in the 
bud, and quite as beautiful. Don’t talk to me about its “ only blooming 
once.” Two-thirds at least of your hybrid perpetuals do no more ; and I 
know not one of them which can lift a more charming head than the 
neglected Triomphe de Bayeux. 
From the Gallica family I could educe a dozen, and from other varie¬ 
ties many examples of Roses “not generally known;” but I have already 
overstrained my tether, and exceeded the space which I w r as invited to 
fill. S. R. H. 
THE AURICULA. 
The Auricula, as is implied in its scientific name, Primula Auricula , is 
the earliest-flowering of the heterogeneous list of plants still popularly 
called “ florists’ flowers,” though the name has shown symptoms of be¬ 
coming as obsolete as that of “ fancy flowers,” which it supplanted, did 
before it. All flowers are included in the florists’ province, and “fancy” 
is a name of individual preference that is either unmeaning or imperti¬ 
nent. But the name was originally given in good faith to a series of hardy 
or half-hardy flowering plants that came into bloom in succession, and had 
acquired the habit of sporting from seed (whence the name of Fancy), 
—that is, which throw from seed distinct permanent varieties,—and be¬ 
ginning with the Auricula in spring, ended at first with the Carnation in 
summer and subsequently with the Dahlia in autumn. To one who has 
watched many of the changes that have taken place, not only in the 
flowers themselves, but in the species included in the list, it is a matter 
of profound interest to see how plants most unpromising and most stub¬ 
born have been made eventually to yield in this respect to the mere per¬ 
severance of the cultivator, some to the more rapid process of hybridiza¬ 
tion ; and while they add to the beauty of our gardens and saloons, have 
supplied Mr. Darwin with illustrations that help to give a plausibility to, 
though they fail to establish, the conclusions arrived at in his really phi¬ 
losophical book. In this list, the Auricula stands first in order of time, 
as among its cultivators it also often stands first in esteem. I, myself, 
possess about a hundred and fifty varieties of it, a number quite unneces¬ 
sary for an amateur; but a box or frame capable of holding eighty plants, 
in some two-score varieties, would be an addition to any garden, however 
otherwise gorgeously furnished. Few garden sights are more delicately 
beautiful than such a box of plants in bloom in April; and the Annual 
National Exhibition, this year to be held at York, first projected by the 
Editor of this periodical and since carried into effect by Mr. Douglas, is 
the surest way I know of to extend the having such boxes of innocent 
pleasure throughout the kingdom. George Jeans. 
