THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 1. 
2U 
splendid bloom. If ever there is a shy plant, or one 
very difficult to keep and grow well, Mr. Green is sure 
to come out with it after everybody else had nearly for¬ 
gotten it, and, better still, he never keeps his plan a 
1 secret, but writes a plain and full account of it in some 
periodical, just as we do in The Cottage Gardener, 
so that they all may try their luck again. The thick 
and broad-leaved Cactus, Epiphyllum crenatum grandi- 
Jlorum, which puzzled me so much at the Regent's Park 
Show, was from him. I knew so much of the family, 
that I was quite sure it could not possibly be a cross 
seedling, and I never knew any of them sport away like 
this, and we all know that botanists in our times do not 
outrage the world with such mongrel names. A puzzle 
like this haunts me so, even in bed, that I cannot sleep 
until I find out a clue to unravel it. This cactus, 
at which we all gaped, and which we took to be so 
new, has been long in England, though only in the 
hands of those who introduced it from the wilds of 
Central America. It turns out to be a genuine wild 
species, never yet recorded in books. There are many 
stout cross seedlings from it in the country by the pollen 
of speciosissimus, but not of a flowering age; and Mr. 
Green had it all the way from Herefordshire, where it is 
found to be as hardy and as easy to manage as the old 
speciosa in the cottage windows. Open a regular siege 
on the nurseries, and we shall soon get this fine addition 
to Mr. Fish’s department, which I highly recommend. 
Crenatum is nothing to it, except in flower; but no 
cross breeder need take it in hand, for it is in the hands 
of one of the best of them as it is, and he will do 
wonders with it, and has done so, although we took it 
for a new plant. Cattleya citrina is another orchid 
which is seldom seen at exhibitions; though an old 
plant, it is oue of the loveliest of the genus, with 
large pure yellow flowers, which are very sweet. It is 
oue of those little Alpine plants from the higher ranges 
of the orchid tribe in Mexico, and requires only green¬ 
house heat, except just while making its annual growth, 
and, like Oncidium bicolor, from like situations, rejoices 
; in tiie full glare of the summer’s sun. Acineta Barkerii, 
a yellow flower, and free bloomer, seems an easy one to 
grow, but is not often seen; it was here in very good bloom, 
but is, on the whole, a second-rate plant. Maxillaria 
tenuifolia, a small, and often a despised plant, was at 
the Chiswick show really in very good order, and when 
seen in that state is not at all to be overlooked ; it is 
one of the commonest of the whole order in Mexico, and 
I have seen it introduced in such quantities as would 
! thatch a cottage. The once Maxillaria aromatica, but 
I now a Lycaste, with its yellow flowers, was near it, and 
ought to be in every collection, on account of its delicious 
cinnamon smell; indeed, it ought to be grown for cut- 
flowers for the market, as everyone likes the smell of it. 
Epidendrum longipetalum was new to me; it is one of 
the best of the small flowering ones, of which there 
seems to be no end of the species; the sepals and petals 
spread open like a star, their colour is chiefly brown, 
and the lip is light at the bottom, and yellow in the 
broadest part; all this class have green, smooth bulbs, 
with two leaves from the top, and they stand the full sun 
when well established. Of the section of Demlrolium, 
in which the lip is formed into a pouch like the bottom 
of a calceolaria, densijlorum and moschatum are the two 
most often seen. The former is pure yellow, and veiy 
rich indeed, producing dense spikes of large flowers; the 
other is a soft yellow, with the throat or mouth of the 
pouch well marked with purple, as you often see in the 
common sorts of calceolarias. 
There was a full collection of variegated plants from 
M r. llollinson, of Tooting, of which Maranta alba lineata, 
and Maranta lineata rosea, with Cypripedium Javanicum 
were the very best. The Cypriped belongs to the section 
of barbatum, the ground colour of the leaves a glaucous 
or greyish green, marked irregularly with bars of a dark 
green. Of this I never saw the flowers, but without 
them the plant is exceedingly interesting. 
Talking about novelties and interesting plants, there 
was one in this collection which surprised every person 
at the show at Chiswick. Nothing has ever been seen 
in London like the leaf of it; you might call it a hand- 
plant or a duck’s-foot-plaut, but the semblance in the 
hand-plant of Mexico is nothing to it; that of the rays 
in passion-flowers is nothing to it also; neither can the 
figures of ghosts, fairies, and hobgoblins presented by 
the orchid-tribe, be likened to it; for it puts them and us 
all to the blush, that we should think of such things 
when more strange appearances, as in this instance, 
come before us unawares. The name of the plant is 
Philodendron pertusum (from phileo, to love, and den- 
dr on, a tree; delighting to embrace the nearest tree with 
its long fleshy aerial roots to support itself, like a great 
Pothos, for an epiphytal kind of life); yet its affinity 
is not with Pothos, but rather with the great Arads, as 
Colocasia, Caladium, and even Arum itself; and pertu¬ 
sum means to break, or slit through. Here we have a 
visible meaning in every syllable in these names ; long 
fibred stems rise from large fleshy acrid roots, the leaves 
so large and heavy that the roots cannot support them, 
great roots come out all the way up, to mend matters, 
and fasten themselves around the largest trees in the 
Brazilian forests, and as the name expresses it, they 
glory in their support. Such large leaves, so high up 
in air, would run the risk of being torn to shreds by the 
violence of the tornado, were it not for a provision of 
nature which secures them in their aerial position; this 
provision gives the meaning of pertusum, the blade of 
the leaf, which is somewhat in the form of a horse-shoe, 
and more than a foot through each way, being slit up from 
the front into fourteen divisions, like so many fingers, 
or rather like so many toes on the web-foot of some 
monster bird, and what is left whole of the web is bored 
through, leaving large holes of no definite shape; so 
that, though the leaf is as big as I said, with these slits 
and holes, the wind has not power to do them harm, let 
them reach ever so high among the trees aDd branches; 
nevertheless, the plant can be grown, and pertusum ex¬ 
emplified in less space than that required by a specimen 
geranium; and to prove the whole, I advise everyone 
who has a stove to get hold of this most singularly-leaved 
plant as soon as he can, and whoever wishes to draw it 
out in its natural beauty and proportions, will only have 
to plant it out against the back-wall of the house, in very 
rich soil, to keep the soil as wet as a swamp while the 
plant is growing, to syringe it every time he enters the 
house in fine weather, and if he never saw an orchid, 
he can understand from this Philodendron how they 
put forth their roots into the air for nourishment and 
support. D. Beaton. 
HARD WOODED PLANTS. 
Acacia grandis.— Were we confined to growing two of 
this genus of New Holland plants, we would fix upon 
this and the Acacia armata. Could we have no more 
than one, then there would be the difficulty of deciding, 
armata being as striking from its golden blossoms, and 
dark, mossy-green foliage, as grandis is distinguished 
by its light green, finely-divided, airy foliage, and its 
dense masses of globular, orange-yellow flowers. For a 
huge plant in a tub, or for covering the wall of a con¬ 
servatory, commend us to armata ; for a neat specimen 
in a pot, ranging in size from six to sixteen inches, I 
would give the preference to grandis. We are indebted 
for this graceful plant to New Holland, whence, also, 
have come all the species that are fitted for the green¬ 
house, and those still hardier that rejoice in the pro¬ 
tection of a conservative wall. 
