238 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— July ], 1856. 
blood of Pelissier, with footstalks to the large scarlet 
trusses, full eighteen inches long. Prim will ap¬ 
pear above all the rest in the show-house, and his 
Richmond Gem is a new style of variegation altogether; 
the purple in the leaves of Lee's Attraction, and of the 
Countess of Warwick, is here set round a large light 
green centre, and is itself encompassed by a deep green 
border. 
Mr. Veitch had another beautiful new hedder, called 
Quercifolium floribundum. This is not a true quercifo- 
lium, but an exact intermediate between the quercifo- 
liums and the capitatum section, best known as the 
Unique breed. It has a large truss, a large purplish- 
pink flower, with dark blotches on the upper petals ; 
a compact, good grower for a bed, and an abundant 
bloomer. There was another kind of the same cross 
with it, which is not so promising; and lie had another 
—a curious red one—with a dark blotch in every petal, 
each blotch running down into the eye. This is called 
Belvidere. 
The Messrs. Lee had a lot of what seemed an ex¬ 
cellent dwarf bedder of the plain-leaved scarlet breed, 
with large, dark scarlet flowers. This is named “ Stun¬ 
ning,'' signifying that it is a “ stunning good sort.” 
Then Mr. Turner had a collection of new seedling 
Pelargoniums, two of which— Conspicuum and Spotted 
Gem — are the first great improvements on the new 
French spotted class, which M. Gains first introduced; 
they are, indeed, very showy, and will be much sought 
after. The Spotted Gem is the richest, but Conspicuum 
the showiest. 
When I hailed the new French sorts, as offering a 
chance to the florist to get out of the eternal circle of 
Cucullatum, they thought I was daft; but see in these 
new forms what they have been brought to already, and 
then say what you think. Another of these seedlings, 
called Viola, is an exact perfection of Lady Flora 
Hastings, a lady’s flower of the first water; but the 
prince of the batch is called the Prince of Prussia, the 
very opposite of His Royal Highness in looks, and the 
best of the high scarlet class of Pelargoniums, not 
forgetting Phaeton itself. The entire flower is bright 
scarlet except the dark blotch, which has a wide scarlet 
margin above; and another, called King of Scarlets, is a 
still brighter scarlet throughout except the deep dark 
spot. This is really the right direction. Keep in this 
strain, and neglect not that of Sanspareil, with the 
French spotted strain, and, depend upon it, the ladies 
will run after you for their new Geraniums. 
Among Mr. Dobson’s new seedlings, Compactum, 
and Amethyst and Eclipse are my best favourites. 
Sunset, and Cardinal Ardens (Beck), aud Alexander, a 
new French dark red, are all good. 
Of seedling Calceolarias there was one capital yellow 
shrubby bedder in Mr. Turner’s lot, called Goldjinder. 
It is the next best to the King of Yellows, which is, 
perhaps, the best dwarf yellow shrubby bedder we have; 
another one, called Pilot, a brown sort, is as good as a 
brown Calceolaria need be. These were all the seedlings 
I noted down. 
Real New plants were not numerous. Mr. Veitch 
showed his beautiful cross Rhododendron, Princess Royal, 
again this year, among “new ” plants, which is against 
the law on such matters, if you recollect what I wrote 
about it last year from the Chiswick June Show, and 
how I extolled it as the first cross from Javanicum by 
Jasminiflora; also Lapageria rosea, trained on a parasol, 
with twenty flowers hanging down round the edges; a very 
curious species of Thibaudia, with Ilex-like leaves and 
drooping, speckled flowers ; Wartzia aurea, a slender, 
yellow “everlasting”-like flower; a new Aetides, with a 
rich, crimson lip; a new Hoy a longifolia, with excel¬ 
lent, long, narrow leaves; and another, more after the 
old Honey-plant, carnosa ; but the most generally useful 
of all his contributions, this time, was a new form of 
Kalmia latifolia, called picta. This is really a rich thing, 
—there are eight, or ten, or a dozen crimson spots in a 
circle inside the flower; a round dot, and a long blotch, 
as regularly as if done on purpose with the pen. Another 
most beautiful evergreen is a new small-leaved Myrtle, 
Myrtus microphylla. It ought to have been called elegan- 
tissima. It has the most elegant habit of all the evergreens, j 
throwing out long, feathery branches, like the top of an 1 
elegant Palm, with only two rows of leaves on the sides ! 
of each, pectinata- like, only that the leaves, as in this | 
order, are alternate. Mr. Veitch had also the lovely tree 1 
Phlox again, alias Leptodactylon; two fine Wellingto- \ 
nias, or Washingtonias, as they say in America, and se- j 
veral others of bis recent introductions. 
Next to these stood Mr. Glendinuing’s novelties, the \ 
most important of which is a new hardy Larch from the , 
North of China, with Cephalotaxus-like leaves, but more j 
numerous, narrower, and of a different green, that bluish- 
green tint peculiar to the Larch. All the Pine collectors 
must run a race for this novelty. A new spiny Citrus, 
with a three-parted leaf, different from any of the tribe 
we know of; a new species of Rhamnus, from which 
the Chinese extract their peculiar green dye; aud a new 
Heath, called after Mr. Spencer, Spenceriana, a cross 
between depressa and hybrida, which takes more after 
the latter. 
To name or describe the plants in Lycopods, Ferns, 
Gloxinias, Achimenes, Roses, Pelargoniums, Calceo¬ 
larias, Fuchsias, Azaleas, Everlastings, and the whole 
repetition of stove and greenhouse plants, would be 
as useless as tiresome. Mr. Lane showed a noble 
specimen of Rhododendron Javanicum. Cut Roses were 
numberless. Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, had a beautiful 
new Pentstemon, purple and blue, and a fine white 
Agapanthus in bloom, with a noble seedling Mexican 
Rhododendron. 
There was an excellent new form of Coleus Blumei 
in Mr. Veitch’s variegated collection, called pectinata, 
tho edges of the leaves being jagged into comb-like 
teeth. There was a Golden Chain Geranium amoDg 
the variegated plants, and a collection of specimen 
plants of variegated Geraniums, and a large Justicia 
from Mr. Windsor, which were much admired; and the 
first collection of Calceolarias from J. Watson, Esq., 
Isleworth, was exceedingly well staged for effect, six iu 
two rows from top to bottom ; Commander-in-Chief aud 
Virago, two dark ones, at two opposite comers; and two 
shades of yellow, Purity and Golden Fleece, at the other 
two corners, with Maria and Duchess of Northumberland 
opposite in the middle. 
The “setting” of the Pelargoniums I have often 
given, and I could give them to-day were it not for 
want of room. Dr. Anclry, in M. Gains’ collection of 
French ones, was the showiest new florist Geranium there; 
then Madame James Odier aud Fue Follet. Sanspareil, 
Majestic, Carlos, and Royal Purple were among the 
gayest of the gay banks of Pelargoniums. 
A collection of cut blooms of a new race of half-tree 
Pcconies from Mr. Salter, of Versailles Nursery, Ham- j 
mersmith, was much admired; but of them and many 
other things I shall write more at length next week, and 
till then the Fruit must stand over with this remark— 
that I left a group of first-rate gardeners near .the en¬ 
trance, at five o’clock, waiting the arrival of the Duchess 
of Sutherland. All the gardeners seem to look on her 
Grace as the rest of us do on Her Majesty, for the whole 
talk was about Mr. Fleming getting eight fruit prizes 
for her that day. D. Beaton. 
