July 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
241 
according to the merits of the flowers, hut to show the 
way I would arrange them for effect, or make a bed of 
each in the flower-garden to show them off in gradation, 
not in contrast. Annie, a seedling, by E. B. Henderson, 
; is my own favourite of this group, and if they put Ocil- 
j latum among them another year, I would place it be- 
! tween 3 and 4. I said in June that it ought to stand 
between the Hero of Surrey and Gaiety, but this is the 
best and true position for it. Queen of the Fancies and 
Ne plus ultra are in the transition state between the 
above and the dark ones, such as Defiance, Magnified, 
Ytolinskii, Statuiskii, &c. &e. 
I Large Pelargoniums. —I did not attend much to the 
I seedlings in this class all the season for two reasons; 
i first, because Mr. Appleby was there, and he could 
see all about them if lie was to shut one eye and 
olose the other; and, secondly, that what they call 
| first-rate ones are as treacherous as “ new and rare 
plants,” for which large prizes are often given before 
anybody knows what they are good for. If ever 
| I am to have two or three leisure days to call my 
own, I shall draw up a list of all the “new and rare 
plants ” that have got first prizes for the last ten years; 
ditto of all the first and second prize geraniums, and state 
how mauy of these appeared in collections this season, 
and then see how far the accumulation of ten years, and 
the barrow-load of medals, have influenced the decision of 
the judges both here and at Chiswick. Now, T rail 
without blushing at giving away money for things 
which nobody knows anything of, and for what the 
florists call the very best of their kind; but if the lists 
f contemplate refute mo (I am very sure they will not), 
why I shall willingly acknowledge myself at fault, and j 
pay more attention to the subject in future. Can any j 
one tell mo if Arnold's Virgin Queen geranium had a 
firs'! prize anywhere when it first came out, or has it 1 
originated at or very near Cheltenham? The reason I 
ask the question is, that we had eight plants of it in so 
many collections at this exhibition, so that that stamps 
it as a favourite; and I missed the Gipsy Bride, the 
best seedling that all the gold in England could get out 
about five or six years ago; but it might have been 
there without my noticing it, as there are a score much 
like it,—dark back and reddish front. There was one 
seedling there, and I shall stake my gold pen that it 
will be a favourite plant in collections twenty years hence, 
and if the pen lasts till they give over growing this 
geranium, it will be brought out on high occasions as 
an heir-loom, of which it will, no doubt, be boasted, that 
“ one of our family ” used it in writing for The Cottage 
Gardener two hundred years ago. The name of this 
seedling i3 Virgineum, and a better name was never hit 
on; it is &11 but pure white, large flowers, large trusses, J 
fine leaves, and a stocky growth, in fact, all that you 
could desire in a virgin white geranium. There is a 
dash of waviness about the petals which would lead you 
to suppose that a little of the pollen of the fancy sorts 
got mixed with that of the pelargoniums to produce the 
result, but that would lead us to the misty regions of i 
superfetation, and we had better drop the subject. Out 
of the large specimen pelargoniums, I marked the fob j 
lowing as very distinct -.—Exactum, white front, and 
dark purple back petals; Virgin Queen —eight plants of— 
rather common-looking, but very showy; the front petals 
white, and a white band round a large brown blotch on 
tire back petals; # Ajax I never saw better; it would 
make a capital match plant for Optimum, where you want 
to place some in pairs, as often happens in conserva¬ 
tories, halls, and other rooms. Ajax is a fiery red in 
, front, with a dark back ; Optimum the same, but a dif- 
j ferent tint in the red, and the back petals are like the 
! back of a raven. Peerless is to be added to the scarlet 
; or high-coloured sootion, and it is as good as most of 
j them, with very little black in it; Alonso, red and dark; 
| Cloth of Gold is quite a marked flower, orange-scarlet, 
another very distinct one, the front dark purple, streaked 
and blotched lilac or French-white eye, and black and 
all black in the back petals; and, lastly, National, red 
and black, and a very bold flower. What a contrast 
between these and the Adam and Eve of the race, which 
stood modestly enough at one corner, Flexuosum, Fulgi- 
dium, and ReniJ'orme, of which there was a seedling 
variation, with lighter blossoms, and it was called 
Erectum, a name next door to nonsense; if we had 
Sapefiorens and the old Grandifiora, the ancient pa¬ 
triarchs would have been complete, or nearly so. 
Chinese Azaleas. —Of them there were still a few ex¬ 
hibited, of which Prcestanoe was the best. Strange it is, 
that cactuses are not brought out more plentifully—only 
one or two collections the whole season. There was a 
very fine lot of Lilium longifiorum, in two varieties, one 
with very sweet flowers, the other not so much so, and 
on this slight pretext the sounding book name Eximeum 
was given to the sweetest on the continent, from whence 
Maquoy, of Leige, first sent it to this country. By the 
side of these lilies stood two excellent varieties of Phlox 
Drummondii, one a rich deep purple, called Tliomsonii, 
the other a fine striped one, called variegata. Then a 
lot of tailings, new things, and specimen plants, not 
worth much ; but I shall say that two of the specimens 
were orchids, and would have been called good eighteen 
years ago, Oncidium pulvinatum, and Cyrtochylum fla- 
vescens. There were three single specimens of Heaths, 
two of them were Cavendishii, the easiest to manage, 
and perhaps the finest of all the family; one of them had 
a prize; but this heath, fine as it is, will grow very well 
in future without a prize at all; the other prize was 
given to Massonii, the finest grown plant of it, and the 
largest I ever saw, yet it is one of the most difficult of 
them to grow well. I recollect the time when no 
gardener in the kingdom could grow it fit to be seen, 
except Mr. M‘Hale, of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden; 
and yet, if my plan of managing this department of the 
exhibitions were in force, these heaths would have no 
prize at all, and another “ specimen ” of which no 
notice was taken, would have come in for a pound or 
five-and-twenty shilling prize, because it was a very old 
and neglected plant, so much so, that if the label bad 
been off, there was not a gardener out of fifty there who 
could tell the name of it. I had it in flower for two 
months, in 1838, and out of at least one hundred good 
plantsmen who called two only could tell the name— 
Mr. Low, of Clapton, and Mr. Gruneberg, of Frankfort. 
'Three of the first botanists in Europe saw it, but could 
not say what it was “just at the moment.” It is easy to 
grow, and is nearly as hardy as a myrtle, and does not 
require training, as it grows better without. It has the 
look of some Diosma, and the flowers of a daisy, but 
bright yellow, and as large as a shilling. I believe it 
was never exhibited in London for competition, and 
though only a second or third-rate plant, it well exem¬ 
plifies what I mean for breaking through the sameness 
of the grandifloras and floribunduses which we see year 
after year, and at every show. The name of this test 
plant is Relhania squarrosa, and let us all hope to see a 
new class in the next schedules—say six stove or green¬ 
house plants that were not exhibited since 1840, or 
some such date; they must be all good iu their way, and 
we shall suppose—to make my meaning more clear— 
that they have either been altogether overlooked, like 
this Relhania, or have been very difficult to grow to 
good shapes, as Euphorbia jacquiniflora. 
D. Beaton. 
