THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 0. 
I sisted chiefly of stove plants with variegated leaves, or 
i leaves so different from the usual run, that they would 
attract the notice of a stranger at first sight. The other 
I collection was composed entirely of hardy variegated 
plants; more than the half of which are better suited 
for rockwork than any other way. Two days afterwards, 
! I went to the Kingston nursery on purpose to see all 
these things at home, and the first plant which took my 
i eye in the show-house was the new Deutzia gracilis, 
| which is really a first-rate plant either for the open 
I borders, the sheltered wall, or for forcing early in the 
spring for the rooms or conservatory. 1 advise every 
one to buy it at once, for now it is cheap enough for the 
I million. On going along the “ herbaceous ground,” 
' which is here very extensive and well arranged, on either 
side of a central walk, I saw Ranunculus amplexicaulis, 
a good old spring-flowering plant, with milk-white 
flowers, which I had not seen since 1825, and, on that 
account, I take to be very scarce; it should stand in 
the front row of a border, as it grows no higher than a 
crocus. The white flowers are of the size of a buttercup 
ranunculus, and the leaves like those of Rliodanthe 
Manglesii, only a little larger. There were several beds 
of the White Lily, with leaves variegated with golden 
stripes, which had a beautiful effect. There is a great 
demand for this plant, and every morsel of the roots , 
are propagated every season. The next best variegated 
plant, if not the best of this class, is the yellow flower- ! 
ing day-lily, or Hemerocallis Jiava, or fulva, or Funlcia, 
as some people call it, after a German gardener named 
Funk. 1 never saw this plant till the other day; but it 
pleased me exceedingly, and I strongly recommend it 
to our herbaceous plant friends. It is not in Mr. Jack¬ 
son's nursery; I saw it at the rooms in Regent-street, 
exhibited in a collection by Mr. Smith, of Norbiton, in 
\ Surrey, and the price is under a shilling. Neither did 
I see the Cocks-foot Grass (Dactylus glomerata), with 
striped leaves, till I saw it with Mr. Jackson, who sells 
abundance of it for rockwork. It is nearly as pretty as 
the old Gardener’s-garter, or Ribbon Grass, of days gone 
by. Another very pretty rock plant is the Variegated 
Strawberry. It is not nearly so strong as those in the 
kitchen-garden, but all the better for that. It is of a 
golden variegation, and much better than one I once 
saw with white edges to the leaves. Then there was a 
dense mass of a golden Variegated Ground Ivy, which, 
by the way, is no ivy at all, but a common British plant 
belonging to the Lipworts, and called in books Glechoma 
liederacea. This is as pretty a rock plant as one could 
have. It makes a dense carpet, and will trail over the 1 
stones ever so far in a year or two. Variegated Balm, 
Thyme, and Sage, are three plants that are well suited 
for rock and cottage gardens, and are more hardy than 
the same kinds with plain leaves; they are also adapted 
for bee-flowers, being sweet, and a little out of the 
common. I also saw a fine Willow herb (Epilobium 
Goodenii) with silver striped leaves, which must look 
well in the summer, and make a striking object in a 
mixed border. A variety of Arabis lucida has golden 
variegated leaves, and would make a very pretty low 
edging plant all the season, or an excellent tuft on rock- 
j work, or in the front row of a mixed border, as would 
the Variegated Daisy; these two, and a fine Variegated 
Wallfiower, were exhibited by Mr. Wood, and apart 
I from these variegated plants, he had two plain-leaved 
i plants, which every one should have as pet things; one 
is Houstonia purpurea, a North American Alpine, which 
one seldom sees now-a-days. It only grows a few inches 
high, makes a dense tuft, and blooms must profusely in 
the spring ; it belongs to the Madderworts, and requires 
peat earth to grow it well. The other is a Catchfly, Si- 
lene acaulis, the prettiest of the whole family. It forms 
a thick carpet on the ground, and is studded all over 
with starry pink or purplish flowers in the spring and 
85 
early in the summer, the whole rising only a few inches i 
off the ground; there is another form of this, with the 
flowers clear white; these two, and another called Sagina 
procumbens, were always called carpet plants when I 
was young, because you could walk over them without 
doing them any harm. I have often stamped them 
down with my foot, after a hard frost, to fix them more 
firmly in the ground ; and this time last year, we were 1 
within an ace of forming one of them into a ribbon 
border at Shrubland Park, in place of the little Qi no tier a 
prostrata, but we could not make out enough of it. 
As Mr Jackson’s collection of variegated plants—I 
mean those which lie exhibited before the Horticultural 
Society—are chiefly from the stove and orchid-house, 
and therefore out of my line, I must not enlarge much 
on them to-day, but shall name them at the end of this 
letter, and go on to say what other things more in my 
own way I had seen with him. There was a large 
stock of the Dielytra spectabilis in pots, and in a border 
close by was a large patch of Dielytra formosum, or 
what used to be called Fumaria formosa. This, with 
Fumaria or Dielytra eximia, a very scarce plant by the 
way, are the only two that I think it possible to cross 
with the beautiful Dielytra spectabilis, and I earnestly 
advise both of them to be tried that way to see what 
can be done with them. Nurserymen are too busy when 
these plants are in flower to attend to this branch, but 
many of them would give a good round sum for a cross 
seedling from either of these. I fear I shall also be too 
busy this season to do much with crossing, but I 
bespoke the two Dielytras from Mr. Jackson, to try my 
hand on them some other day, and if any of our readers 
could find out D. eximia for me, I would return him a 
plant of the first cross, if it is not crying chick, chick, 
before the egg is hatched. The double scarlet currant, 
Ribes sanguineum, and the so-called white variety of it, a 
pale sort only, were here in large numbers, reminding me 
of Ribes Gonlonianus, a cross of my own rising, about 
which I shall some day tell a sad tale, but now only 
express my surprise that no one has followed out that 
scent. Gheiranthus Marshallianus I never saw so fine 
as with Mr. Jackson, in pots, and it is a pity that such 
a fine thing should be left in any nursery. What a 
splendid yellow bed it would make late in the spring, if 
planted in very good soil in October, after the suinmer- 
bedders were housed; in short, to treat it as we do wall¬ 
flowers, what an addition to the road-side gardening it 
would make. I mean that the plant deserves to be 
universally grown. It is still a new plant to the 
million, although it has been two or three years in the 
trade. Mr. Stark, from Edinburgh, who advertises in 
our first page, was the lucky raiser of it. I hope he is 
as lucky in his parentage of it, but I very much doubt; 
but that does not affect the offspring. It was said to bo 
a cross from a wall-flower by the pollen of Erysimum 
Perofsldanum, but that was a mistake which originated 
in London; before the plant left Edinburgh we were 
told that it came from a plant which belongs to the 
same genus as the wall-flower, not from the wall flower 
itself, from the pale yellow Gheiranth, Gheiranthus ockro- 
leucus, an Alpine perennial from Switzerland. Now, 
some people may believe that swede turnips will cross 
with and spoil brocoli or red cabbage, because they arc 
so near alike in their flowers; and we all know that a 
sport or a hybrid may come in a way we cannot account j 
for, once in a life-time; but there is nothing on record j 
to warrant the belief that a true perennial has yet | 
crossed with a true annual, both being natives of the j 
temperate, or of the tropical parts of the earth. Besides, * 
the elaborate dissertations of the elder Decandollo on I 
the Crucifers, which cost him a life-time, and which has 1 
been generally adopted by most European botanists, 1 
must be cast to the winds if this cross is true to the j 
parentage given; and it would be well worth the trouble j 
