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THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 20. 
rooms, and for many kinds of decorations. They had, 
also, Acacia pulcliella major, a standard plant, with rich, 
yellow, globular flowers. Many of these Acacias are 
eminently fitted for making little standards, which 
would take up little room in a house, and make a 
marked variety in the usual forms of pot plants; Bo- 
ronia tetrandra, three feet in diameter, aud two feet 
high—a fine plant; also Eriostemons, and others; with 
a collection of fifty Hyacinths, among which Asterius, 
Gunal, and Prince Albert, looked all but black; Grand 
Vidette, Queen of the Netherlands, and Victoria Regina, 
are three single white ones, of good substance; Com¬ 
mandant was the best of the indigo-blue, double ones, 
and Cceur Blanc, or White Heart, was a large, light 
blue, with a white eye or centre; Laurens Poster is 
still the best light blue; Roi de Pois Bas, buff-yellow, j 
and Jaune Supreme, a clear yellow. 
Erom the garden of the Society we had a good collec¬ 
tion of showy plants, including a fine large specimen of 
Rinchospermtm jasminoides, with its sweet-scented, white 
flowers. This climber will grow and flower very well 
in the open air through the summer; Rhododendron 
theaflorum, which comes very near to, if it is not the 
same as, ylaucum, in the Sikkim collection; a good 
specimen of a pink, wild, Indian Balsam, well known 
as Impatiens latifolia, the earliest of them I recollect to , 
have seen. It will also flower on till the end of next 
October, by a succession of plants in pots; and it will j 
make a very good bed out-offloors for the autumn, if 
planted out about the beginning of July. A large 
Azalea, from China, called calycina, no doubt a hybrid; 
Triomphe de Garni Tropoeolurn, a most useful winter 
flower, and the best of that section; Gesnera Douglassii, 
an old and very scarce plant, and others. 
J. Alnutt, Esq., of Clapham Common, sent, or rather 
brought, a white seedling Camellia, which he raised 
twenty years ago, and which flowered true till this 1 
season, when a beautiful red flower appeared as a sport, j 
The two flowers were before us, and were texts for the 
lecturer to show how that many things which we grow, j 
and admire, and relish, are the result of such sports; 1 
but science cannot yet fathom the cause of such de- j 
partures from the first type. The Golden Drop Plum, 
to his own knowledge, was a sport from the Magnum 
Bonum. 
Dr. Royle sent a strong, healthy Balm, or rough 
Salvia-looking plant, a kind of Nettle, but called the 
China Grass Plant; it was growing in a China-looking 
contrivance, like a hand-basin of lead. Some people 
said that this was the Manilla Hemp plant; but Dr. 
Royle, who has all such things at his fingers ends, told 
us the Manilla Hemp is the produce of a Banana-tree, 
called Musa textilis ; that the true name of the Grass 
Plant of China is Bcehmeria vinea; that it belongs to the 
Nettleworts ; that it is cultivated as far north in China as ; 
Shaughae for its fibre; that it would grow in Assam, 
and in the Sutlej, or north-west of India, as well as the 
tea, and pay better than tea; that, like the tea, it is a 
perennial, and may be cut down twice or three times in 
the year; also, that it is just the plant for the south and 
west of Ireland, and that the Irish Elax Society would 
make their fortune with it, but that they must write to 
Mr. Eortune to send them seeds of it to begin with. 
All this, and a great deal more, about textile fabrics, 
Musas, and fibre plants, were lectured about; but the 
best of all was, the very things were in specimens before 
us, and handed round for us to examine. There were 
imitations of the fibre of our linens, cottons, and silks, 
and real manufactured cordage, from a cable size and 
strength down to a sash line aud to staylaces; also, a 
piece of exquisite cloth fit to make a couple of French 
aprons for an opera dancer, and all from the fibre of one 
plant. 
As a sign of the times I may say, that fourteen years 
since I endeavoured to influence this Society to pa¬ 
tronise a lady, Mrs. Randolph, who made beautiful 
flowers out of the feathers of Brazilian birds, but she 
was told that that belonged rather to the Society of Arts, 
while to-day they are encouraging the art and manu¬ 
facture of ropes to hang the Russians, and to destroy 
their trade in hemp. The refuse fibre from all this 
manufacture would be the very thing to make us paper 
sufficient to make our books as cheap as blackberries. 
D. Beaton. 
GROUP OF SPRING-FLOWERING SHRUBS 
FOR THE GREENHOUSE. 
CYTISUS RACEMOSUS LATIFOLIUS. 
The C. rodopheena is among dwarf plants of this 
family; the one instanced above is among the more 
robust aud free-blooming section. I am not quite sure 
of the botanical name. It generally passes under the 
term “ latifolius.” Its loaves are much larger and more 
elegant than most of its congeners, while its large ra¬ 
cemes of delightfully-scented, high-coloured, yellow 
flowers give it, in our opinion, the first place in the 
family. A plant from four to six feet in height, and 
wide in diameter in proportion, clothed with flowers 
and healthy foliage, is not easily to be forgotten, nor yet 
pushed aside for mere novelties, more especially when 
it preserves its beauty for several months at a time, and 
if allowed to have its way would almost always present 
a stray raceme to cut for the flower vase. It is so 
accommodating, that by altering the time of pruning, 
and varying the treatment, it may be had in hloom 
almost at any time. In a greenhouse it blooms most 
naturally from March to July. Certain of our friends 
have a prejudice against its colour, associating it with 
the dread terms of deceitfulness and jealousy; but I quite 
agree with a Loudon nurseryman, who once descanted | 
to me on the dullness of all plant-houses, and even of i 
nosegays, unless bridal ones, that were not relieved and j 
enlivened up with a sprig of jealousy colour. I will 
shortly glance at a few points in its culture; and 
1. Propagation. —It is easily and generally truly 
raised from seeds, when obtainable. Few seed-pods j 
should be left on a plant, as they weaken it, and render j 
the plant later in making its fresh shoots. The seeds 
should be kept until spring, moistened in water at a tem¬ 
perature of 80° for twelve hours, and sown in a hotbed in 
March. It is generally raised from cuttings of short, 
stubby, half-ripened shoots, which are easily procurable 
from March to July. These should be inserted round 
the sides of a pot, in silver sand, with peat and loam 
beneath, covered with a bell-glass, aud placed in a tem¬ 
perature a few degrees higher than that the plant stood 
in. In either case, the plants should be potted when 
sufficiently large to be easily handled, kept close, and 
shaded for a time, aud then exposed gradually to plenty 
of air and sunshine. 
2. Choosing a Plant.- —We have seen this plant very 
plentiful in the London nurseries, but it is not nearly 
so plentiful now, its place being supplied by the smaller- 
leaved species and varieties, which, though in our esti¬ 
mation not nearly so beautiful, are easier kept and 
managed. Do not trouble yourself about a large plant, 
provided you get it healthy, and bushy to the bottom, or 
shoots there, that by stopping you can make as bushy 
as you like. Size is of less importance here, as with 
good treatment you will soon have the plant as large as 
you wish. 
8. Soil. —When the plant is young, I advise nearly 
equal parts of peat and loam, with an allowance of ! 
broken charcoal and sand to keep the whole open. 
Thorough drainage must be given. As it increases in 
