November 22. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
07 
edge as regular as that of a china tea-cup. The 
pelargoniums, or florists’ geraniums, have irregular 
flowers, owing to the two hack petals in their flowers 
being much larger than the three lower ones, and 
the scarlet geraniums have also irregular flowers, 
owing to a contrary arrangement. In these, the two 
back petals arc much narrower than the three front 
ones, so that each section is characterized by well 
marked features, which any person can understand 
at first sight. Therefore, no matter by what names 
we distinguish these sections from each other, either 
of them must stand clear of the other two; and so 
they do naturally, for they will not intermix by their 
pollen. The florist and the flower-gardener take it 
for granted that their respective sections branched 
out originally from the true geraniums, and in doing 
so lost the best feature of the parent-stock, just as 
often happens to colonists of our own family when 
they depart from the “wisdom of their ancestors.” 
Now, these worthies—I mean the florist and the 
flower-gardener — endeavour to improve the cha¬ 
racter of their respective breeds by turning the 
shape of the flowers back as much as possible to 
that of the original type—that is, to a regular form ; 
and they have been so successful already as to re¬ 
produce true geraniums out of the pelargonium and 
pelargonium sections. The florist, by getting up the 
size of the bottom petals of his flowers to that of the 
top ones, and the flower-gardener, by enlarging the 
top petals of his section to the size of the lower ones, 
and all this time good cultivation or good feeding, 
produced a corresponding improvement in the sub¬ 
stance of the individual petals. Consequently, a 
good round shape ymd full substance are the two 
iirst essentials in a scarlet geranium, and unless the 
two top petals are nearly as largo as the three bottom 
ones, the flower is not the right shape. A great 
many of the most fashionable scarlets have an awk¬ 
ward way of rolling back their top petals, and you 
should never cross from a seedling of this habit, un¬ 
less the colour is very peculiar, and you want to fol¬ 
low it out at all hazards, trusting to a better shape 
in a future generation The third character is that 
of the truss; it should stand well up above the 
leaves, but not so far as to reveal them. Tom Thumb 
is very awkward in this character—its flower stalks 
are too long; and if a large plant of it produced a 
score of trusses in a pot, they would not hide a sin¬ 
gle leaf from the view, so that in it two masses of 
colour — green and scarlet—vie with each other; 
whereas, if the footstalks were shorter, the scarlet 
could only be seen with here and there a glimpse of 
the green leaves. This summer there were two boxes 
full of Judi on one of the terraces here—each box ten 
feet long, and nearly a yard wide—and for three or 
four months you could only see a glimpse of the 
leaves here and there, just enough to relieve the in¬ 
tense brilliancy of the flowers. The plants were in 
the same soil for the last four years on Hairy 
Moore’s plan; yet, seven or eight trusses of Judi 
would hardly make one truss of the size of that of 
Tom Thumb, so that a seedling may furnish an im¬ 
mense truss, and yet not form so rich a bed or basket 
as another with trusses half the size; hence the rea¬ 
son why I recommend footstalks sufficiently long to 
elevate the flowers only to the surface of the foliage. 
The next essential character in these seedlings is tire 
shape of the truss and the disposition of the flowers. 
At present, the trusses of these scarlets are of two 
forms—the flat and the globular. Those with flat 
trusses, or bunches like the flowers of the elder, make 
by far the best bedders. as that form of flower covers 
moro space, and hides the leaves more than the 
globe flowers. Shru bland scarlet, Compaction, and 
Gem of scarlets (“let out” last spring by Mr. Ayres), 
are the three best globular-flowered ones wo have. 
The Compaction is the least capricious of the three 
as to soil, and I fear the Gem of scarlets will not do 
here; the flowers are set so close on the truss that 
they cannot expand properly without strong soil; 
but where this variety will succeed, as I think it must 
on all heavy or damp soils, it will turn out the best 
bedding one we have after Punch, which, how r ever, 
will only succeed on poor light or gravelly soil. 
Punch having a flat-lieadcd truss, twenty of its trusses, 
or single flowers, will cover as much space as thirty 
or forty of those of the Gem of scarlets. The flowers 
of the Gem, individually; are the smallest of all the 
scarlets I know, and I think I have seen all of them 
that are worth culture, but the trusses are immensely 
large, and every flower has a distinct white eye ; the 
footstalk is nearly as long as that of the Shrubland 
scarlet, and altogether is a most beautiful thing. 
Royalist is the next best bedder, and is more likely 
to suit different soils than many of the new ones. It 
is a well-marked liorse-slioe, with very large trusses, 
which are intermediate between the globular and 
flat-headed ones. It was sent out last year by the 
late Mr. Conway, and I mention it to exemplify the 
three prominent forms of truss in this section of 
geraniums, and also to explain the reasons I have 
for recommending such and such characters in seed¬ 
lings, these reasons being all founded on usefulness 
rather than on any whimsical fancy; and let us now 
recapitulate them. 
Elowers as nearly cap-shaped as possible ; the two 
back petals to bo as broad as the three front ones; 
the truss to be flat on the top, and the flowers set 
loosely on it; the footstalk not to be longer than 
merely to raise the flowers free from the leaves; a 
small truss to consist of from 50 to 00 flowers, and a 
large one double that number ; shade of colour mere 
fancy—anything from pure white to dark scarlet will 
find a place in th# flower-garden. 
These scarlet geraniums were in their prime at 
the end of October, but a selection of names from 
among them will not be jjworth much, as many of 
them vary exceedingly on different soils. The next 
class of geraniums for flower beds is composed of 
various sections, which the florists, in their impa¬ 
tience, have been foolish enough to discard. They 
are everlasting flowerers, or hybrid perpetuals, as 
we call them here for distinction’s sake. Some of 
them make splendid beds, and a good assortment of 
them were in full beauty at the time of taking these 
notes—the end of October. Diadematum and Diade- 
matum rubesccns, with Unique and Lady Mary Fox, 
struggle on the very point of my pen for preference ; 
and there are more candidates of equal merit; but, 
like other things which arc swayed by fancy or 
taste, each of these bedders will have its admirers, 
and some will prefer one, and some another. Per¬ 
haps it is not fair to put up Unique in competition 
as a candidate for favour, as it stands alone in the 
endless varieties belonging to this family in colour 
and richness of tints. The florists, with all their 
“ rules of art,” have never been able to obtain so rich 
a purple as that of Unique. Yet, of all the geraniums, 
this has less cause to boast of high lineage, having 
descended from a little insignificant weed ( Capita■ 
turn) with pale lilac blossoms. Mi - . Wood, a friend 
of mine, writing in the Gardener’s Chronicle, first re¬ 
commended Unique as a bedder, where he offered a 
gpeat indignity to her majesty the Queen of Porta- 
