120 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 27. 
| be said of such trumpery things. There were only two 
I good ones there, as 1 said last week; but they were 
j beauties, particularly Prince Arthur ; everybody ought 
i to grow this one. Gain’s Salamander is another of the 
I pelargoniums which took my fancy very much; it is a 
high-coloured one. There was another one called Mar¬ 
quis of Stafford, I think, but the name was not very 
plain, a very fine purplish flower; and another in the 
same way called Beck's Purpurea. The way I judge all 
these, and every other plant in masses of one family, 
when I am not judging for prizes, is this: after looking 
hard at them close in front, I go off as far from them as 
that all that come very near to each other appear as if they 
were really one kind, those, therefore, that are really dis¬ 
tinct, appear as marked stars on a given ground colour. 
Now this is exactly the foundation of the way that ninety- 
nine ladies out of a hundred judge flower-beds or 
flowering-plants on the stages of a show-house, without, 
perhaps, their being aware of it at all times. When | 
you are puzzled to know the best geranium out of a lot, 
just try this plan, and my word for it you will see the 
difference in a moment. 
Fancy Geraniums. — Queen Victoria is still at the 
head of the whites in this class, and of that we all ought 
to be proud. Heine des Franqais follows, with a better 
red in the back petals. Aboni is better than either of 
. them in scarlet and white, and Fairy Queen the best of 
the race shown there that day, and if the front petals 
of it could be washed by some other fairy, so as to have 
them clear white, that would be again my neplus ultra 
for a bedder from the fancy class. I once saw such a 
flower, and I had it in my hand, and so I had a dry 
specimen of the yellow geranium from the Cape. The 
beauty is gone, I fear, for my day, and the yellow is, per¬ 
haps, in England, and perhaps not; at any rate, there 
is more than one yellow kind at the Cape—a good, a ! 
better, and the best. Mr. Ayres, a nurseryman at Black- | 
heath, is a very successful raiser of fancy geraniums, and 
be too had a beauty there, which he called Miranda, and 
he had another seedling from the Quercifolium breed, 
which are all bedders ; it was called Quercifolium roseum. 
A seedling exactly like it of my own raising, was the 
father of Shrubland Pet, and the father must go to the 
wall to make room for the Pet ; but that is only a figure 
of speech. If Quercifolium roseum has pollen, and I 
forgot to look, it will be more valuable than the with¬ 
out pollen, but as a bedder, it must not be mentioned 
the same day as the Pet. Mr. Ayres had the best trained 
geranium in the garden—a new seedling bedder of the 
citron-scented tribe, with light flowers. This specimen 
was perfect—a regular model, that ought to be set up in 
wax, if only to try and shame the other growers who 
brought in the fashion of Dutch flat dumps in stays, and 
all manner of contortions; the shape was a blunt cone, 
the bottom leaves fell over the pot when the plant was 
a yard in diameter, if not more, and it was nearly four 
feet high, and as regular all the way up as a sugar-loaf, 
but not coming in quite so tapering at the top, which 
made it all the better. Ladies, and flower-gardeners of 
the first water, do not fancy any of the fancy geraniums 
that come black and white, or brown and white in the 
flower. People said that the Hero of Surrey would make 
a good bedder, and so it Will sure enough, but who will 
look at it? It is of no use planting beds for one’s self; 
for if we did not get admirers for what we do, there 
would be very few shows like this, or beds like that. 
Chinese Azale's. —For the names of these, the 
reader will please to turn to the account of the May 
show r last year ; for to tell the truth, to repeat them, or 
anything else year after year, gives one the headache. 
They were as numerous as ever, and of course larger by 
a year’s growth, or rather two years’ growth, to those 
who missed them lastyear, like me; and there were a few 
new faces, dwarf plants as round as anything, and as 
full of bloom as if they were stuck on by hand. One of 
them called Glory, and another called Perfecta clegans, 
I marked down as favourites; and there was one with 
some of the stamens run into curly little leaves, filling 
up the eye after the way of Petunia Devoniensis. It will 
make a good marked variety among so many. The 
flowers of Glory are red, and they shine as if they were 
varnished. Perfecta elegans may be conceived by sup¬ 
posing the Rising Sun geranium to have lost the black 
mark; then the two flowers would be very much alike 
in colour and form. On trying them at a distance to 
see the most marked sorts, the purplish ones strike you 
first, and there were three kinds of them, and any of 
them could be distinctly made out two hundred yards 
off; they were Rawsonii, Macrantha purpurea, and 
Grandis. Those, therefore, who think they have too 
many red ones every year in their conservatories or 
show-rooms, ought to get those three ; for depend upon 
it, there is nothing tires sooner than looking on a great 
number of flowers all nearly of the same general tint. 
If there is any truth in mesmerism, you can prove it at 
any of these great London shows—stand right in the 
middle of the great geranium stage, and try to look at 
them all rather vacantly, without looking at any one of 
them in particular, the effect will soon come on, and un¬ 
less you be off you will soon be asleep as sound as a 
drummer. For a shady white, or rather light, there is 
none better than Exquisita. All the pure whites, and 
the striped ones as Variegata, Iveryana, and such like, 
look at a distance all alike, but you cannot get the eye 
off Exquisita, and its leaves mix better with the flowers 
than any one that was there. Talking of Variegata, I 
saw two new variegated ones stuck ill a corner, and I 
hope I shall never see them again, for of all the frights 
in this world they were the most sickly. 
There were some contributions of Plants with varie¬ 
gated or curious leaves, but we had enough about them 
lately; they were very badly disposed of there. There 
were twelve Hydrangeas in small pots with the largest 
flower heads I ever saw—all pinkish flowers, and as 
good in their way as any of the orchids. The Mimuluses 
were infinitely superior to the cinerarias and calceolarias. 
Eximius and Speciabilis, from Mr. Gains, of Battersea, 
were really fine things, and for size and colour what 
could exceed those shown by Mr. Sims, a nurseryman 
at Foots Cray, in Kent? There was one called Star, 
which is as good as any. 
At this show, in the rooms in Regent-street, and in the 
large conservatory of the Society, one of the most useful 
spring flowers we have was conspicious on all hands; I 
mean Salvia gesnerijiora. On the conservatory wall it 
lasted with us from the end of February to the beginning 
of June. I saw it the year before last coming into 
bloom early in January, in a heat of 70°, with Mr. 
Jeffries, at Ipswich, and it did not appear to be the least 
“drawn” by so much heat, so that this salvia may be 
had in bloom from Christmas to Midsummer-day. This 
would be a good time to plant out little plants of it in a 
good border, as you would the old Salvia splendens, or 
the chrysanthemum; to be taken up at the end of 
September, for coming into flower early next spring; at 
any rate, everybody ought to grow it, 
Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, had Vriesia speciosa there; 
a very beautiful thing, which took much attention; it 
had two long flower-spikes like a double-edged sword, 
the flowers coming out in steps, as it were, all up on both 
edges, as in Gladiolus foribundus. The spike itself 
was of a rich colour, and the flowers much richer—a 
crimson. Without the flowers, you would take the 
plant to be an iEcmaea, with zebra-marked leaves. There 
was also a little morsel of a zebra-marked-leaf variety of 
Aphelandra cristata (I believe), from Mr. Van Hout, at 
GheDt. This marking was clear white. This will surely 
come to be a striking and favourite plant; and he sent 
