6 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 6. 
i 
! 
worthii, from Sikkim, could not stand out such a winter 
as the last. 
We had, also, from Pine-Apple Place, Eriostemon 
scabrum, a model of good management, covered with 
starry, white flowers, for the greenhouse; also, Dill- 
wynia pungens, a prickly, small-leaved plant, with yel¬ 
lowish pea flowers ; a Boronia triphylla, with bright 
pink flowers ; JEschynanthus speciosus, with large orange 
flowers; and a small plant of a new, tome, Boronia 
molina, with light blush flowers, and rather softer in 
the wood and leaves than the rest of this family. 
There was a tall, slender Dendrobium, with flowers 
very like those of nobile, from Mr. Whitbread, Stratford 
Green. And the Messrs. Rollinson, of Tooting, sent a 
full collection of Orchids, in which was the droll Lycaste 
1 mentioned at the last meeting. It is called Lycaste 
brevispatha; a yellow Lycaste, like Maxillaria aromatica, 
but a better yellow, and little or no scent; two varieties 
I out of the twenty forms which Lycaste Skinnerii 
\ assumes; a large Dendobnum Farmerii, with long 
racemes of white flowers, having a soft, velvety, yel¬ 
lowish eye—a fine thing ; two fine varieties of Cattleya, 
from Java, in the way of intermedia ; a larger variety of 
Barkeriaelegans than Mr. Jackson’s plant. Three large 
Vandas, from Java, allied to suavis; a large specimen 
of Dendrobium macranthum, which scented the whole 
room. The shoots of this plant were trained upright, 
and there were fifteen of them loaded with large, light 
purple flowers. Mrs. Lawrence exhibited one of these, 
in 185a, with all the shoots hanging down from the pot. 
A new species of Sobralia, with flowers as large as 
those of macrantha, with light blush sepals, and a large 
violet-coloured front or lip; also Dendrobium fimbrialum 
oculatum, the most delicate yellow, the lip fringed all 
round, and a large, horse-slioe, dark mark at the bottom, 
legalising the additional name oculatum. 
The Messrs. Lee, of Hammersmith, sent a collection 
of fine Camellias, and plenty of cut flowers of the same. 
De la Heine, a soft white flower, with a few carnation 
stripes, was much praised. Alcmene, a shaded Rose, 
and quite imbricated, is a fine flower; Wilderii, just 
like imbricata, but of a lighter tint; Saccoi nora, an 
Italian seedling, is a fine light Rose; Duchess of Buc- 
cleugli, a large, red, imbricated flower, rising high in 
the centre. 
Amongst the cut flowers, Bealii is my favourite ; a 
dark-crimson Florida the next best tint; Landrethii the 
next shade; Monarch, a good dark flower; Lord Nelson, \ 
a fine white, with stripes; but the old favourites, Jim- \ 
briata, the fringed white, tricolor, Donkelearia, and 
elegans, the Cabbage-rose Camellia, are matches for any- I 
thing in the Camellia way. There was a new seedling I 
Camellia from Mr. Chandler, of Vauxhall, called for- 
mosa, in shape like imbricata, but a different tint. 
There was a curious, large, Arum-like plant in the 
collection from looting, called Philodendron Simsii, 
with a cluster ot the most singular-looking flowers, 
being the hoods, or spathes, which cover the real' 
flowers ot the Arum tribe; they looked like living cones 
of polished ivory, deep crimson at the bottom or broad 
end, and the top a light cream colour. They are said 
never to open much, and that is all the better, for 
there cannot be much inside these ivory hoods worth 
looking at. 
There was a cut branch of a blue Thunbergia-like 
flower, from Mr. Veitcb, with leaves like those of Thun- 
bergia coccinea, and the colour is like the blue Gloxinia, 
or, perhaps, lighter, like the flowers of Paulownia impe¬ 
rials. It is a stove climber from Moulmeiu. Also, a 
cut truss of a Rhododendron, a light ground, intensely 
spotted, and called picturatum superbum. 
To these, many more plants in the room might be 
added by name, but I have no remarks to make, only 
on the following from the Society’s garden. A beautiful 
specimen of Deutzia gracilis, in a twenty-four pot, with 
the tips of the branches brought over and tied down to 
others on the opposite side of the pot near the rim; thus 
done all round, throws the plant into a globe shape, and 
nothing is seen but flowers, a large snow-ball, in fact. 
The elegant double white Prunus sinensis, like a double 
flowering cherry, a pretty plant; an Erica andromedeefolia, 
a literal beauty, and as bold, in its large flowers, as 
beautiful; also E. macnabiana, a hard and difficult one 
to do so well. Cattleya pallida, with immense pale 
blush flowers; Blandianum, the best variety of Dendro¬ 
bium nobile; Chorizema Laurenciana, with prickly holly¬ 
like leaves, with purple and dark copper-coloured flowers, 
a neat thing, and several others. 
I must pass those over in haste to tell of the good 
news, that this Society have just begun to give up their 
nonsensical way of giving outlandish names to our best 
kinds of sallad plants. We had Lettuce, to-day, instead 
of lattice-work; and Sorrel for Gazelles; and now, after 
tasting three kinds of Sorrel, I can tell the cooks that 
the Sorrel of Belleville is better for them than our old 
broad-leaved or small-leaved French Sorrel; that Lamb’s 
Lettuce is Lamb’s Lettuce after all; that Corn Sallad is 
an excellent thing for those who like it ; and that the 
Mysteries of Paris are only the shaking of hands with 
the Emperor. There was no mystery about the French 
Lettuces from Mr. Solomons; I never saw finer in 
England in June. The curled Endive, the red and 
white Radishes, the blanched Chicory, the Chervil, the 
Cress, and the SalsaJ’y, were enough to make one’s 
teeth water. 
Woods and Forests. —The roof of Westminster Abbey 
was never of Spanish Chesnut after all. In the good 
old times they cut down all our best kind of Oak for 
roofing the best buildings, and there was hardly enough 
left us to prove the fact that such roofs were of real 
English Oak ; that our two kinds of Oak are as differ¬ 
ent as can be; that carpenters, who spent their years 
on knotty Oak ( Quercus pedunculhtd), will not believe 
their own eyes, saws, or planes, when they get on a plant 
of the stalkless-flowered ( Quercus sessiliflora ), and they 
must have it that this beautiful working Oak must be 
no Oak, but a Chesnut, like the roof of Westminster Abbey. 
But here we had the whole subject in all its bearings, 
planks of our two species of Oak, of Spanish Chesnut, 
and several specimens of the wood from the roof of the 
Abbey; of how the late Mr. Atkinson, a great architect 
and authority on woods, dissented from the general belief 
of Spanish Chesnut roofs; and how Mr. Tredgold, with 
his great engineering skill, tested the strength of this 
and that Oak and Chesnut, and the impression was 
very general at last, that in the new order of things no 
Oak but the sessile, or stalkless-flowered Oak, should be 
planted in the new and royal forests and that the more 
common Oak is better to flavour bacou; first, by feeding 
the pigs with acorns, and next, by smoking their flesh 
by its burning wood, than for building purposes of any 
kind. 
We also had woods of the American Larch, to show 
it is of little use on our soil, and the European Larch, 
from Scotland, to show it is our best native timber, 
there being little more than an inch of sap-wood in a 
block nearly two feet in diameter. D. Beaton. 
NEW FLORISTS’ FLOWERS. 
It has been suggested, that occasional lists of new 
and improved Florists’ Flowers would be useful to many 
readers of The Cottage Gardener. In accordance 
with that idea, I purpose giving such lists, from time to 
time, as they fall under my notice, and I should be glad 
if any florist in the country, or in the neighbourhood of 
London, if they think their new flowers really superior 
