Junk 22. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
215 
Purplish Geraniums. — Ajax, Governor, and Pur¬ 
purea, are three splendid kinds of this rich strain, and 
the only ones of it on this occasion. Ajax is my own 
favourite, but that may be from my schoolboy’s admira¬ 
tion of the Greek hero himself; Governor is nearly as 
showy, and some might prefer Purpurea to the other 
two. 
White Geraniums. —Dobson’s Delicatum is a most 
welcome addition; it is as large as Pearl, a better flower, 
quite as strong, and with a small feathery scarlet blotch 
in the back petals. Exaction is only three-parts white, 
but it is more catchable to the eye than Virgin Queen, 
which is the nearest to it. Another one, called Esther 
(Turner’s), is a very good and welcome addition to the 
light Geraniums, or Pelargoniums; all tho rest were 
like flocks of sheep; though different in aspect, they wore 
so much alike as to tire one’s patience. Tho only one 
which you could point to, out of fifty, at six yards off, as 
being different, was one called Painter Improved: but, 
when you come close to it you must form your own 
judgment of it. 
Novelty in Geraniums.— There was a grand novelty, 
at last, among the Geranium strains, but not by 
Englishers, nor by any Britishers; they came from 
France. You may say just as you please about French 
florists, but they do not spin round in a circle like 
those of our islands. They do not seem even to put 
much stress on circularity among the petals. What 
they want are what we call striking flowers; and our 
high-born ladies agree witli them. Yet, witli ail our 
skill, wo allow circularity and sameness to throw our best 
flowers, one after tho other, out of the market year after 
year. We do more, we institute public societies, on 
purpose to sacrifice all the best colours we have to the 
mere whim of forms with no colours to speak of. I 
make this introduction to the novelty, because I know 
some of my own personal and best friends will call me 
hard names for seeing any beauty in these “shapeless 
flowers” from France. I am accustomed to bantering, 
however; and as to criticism, I am too old on the turf 
to be influenced by anything they can put in black and 
white; and so I hold it to be of more use, and to be 
more useful to the lovers of best flowers and to the 
trade, to be able to originate a novel strain, than to 
double all the “ points” in a florist’s flower. 
I hope Mr. Gains, the great florist of Battersea, will 
make a fortune out of the new strain Geraniums which 
he introduced, a year or two ago, from France, and which 
he exhibited at this show for the first time. 1 heard all 
about them, this time four years, from Mr. F. Rauch, 
of Vienna, when he was last here in London. I have 
crossed Geraniums, and have watched all tho crosses 
ever since 1820, and in that time we had no cross 
so different from the common run as Madame de 
Lamoriciere, which has a light orange-scarlet ground, 
the petals being of the same shape and size all round, 
and the five petals arc marked exactly alike, with a 
round, dark blotch—not where the dark blotches are in 
English Geraniums, hut lower down, near the eye. If 
that seedling had been raised down at Birmingham, wo 
should first hear of it as a true bigeneric cross, between 
such a Geranium and such an Hybiscus! The second 
most marked of these French seedlings is called 
Triomphc de la Tour, a very streaked flower, with dark 
i blotches on the front and back petals. Gloirede Bellevue 
has the five petals blotched like the back petals of 
English seedlings, the ground colour being red, and the 
edges light all round. Gustave Odier, crimson and 
orange-yellow ground, violet eye, and all the petals 
marked alike with darker blotches. Jaques Duval, a 
very streaked, reddish flower, and Colonel Fossy, much 
in the same way. All these were much admired and 
talked about for their very novel and striking appear¬ 
ance ; and all of them put together do not exhibit a 
single point of those so much prized by our florists, and 
by none else. 
Orchids.— They were never exhibited more uniformly 
alike as to size. They showed a close competition 
throughout, just such as one would like to see at all 
shows whether in London or in the provinces. Mr.Veitch j 
and the Messrs. Rollinson competed, each with fifteen 
plants, the Tooting ones coming off second best. Mr. j 
Williams, gardener to C. B Warner, Esq., and Mr. j 
Wooly, his next-door neighbour and gardener to H. B. | 
Ker, Esq., took the places of Mrs. Lawrence and I 
Mr. Rucker, and sustained the parts most completely, 
with twenty plants a-piece. Mr. Williams took the 
lead; Mr. Green, Mr. Clark, Mr. Carson, and Mr. Dods 
—all well-known names for air plants — had each a 
collection of tens. Mr. Clark, gardener to Mrs. Webb, 
of Hoddesdon, taking the best medal. Mr. Yeitch had 
Any ulna Rackeri, with two orange-and-brown flowers; 
Gatticya Aclaud'uc, two flowers; Epidendrmn vitelliuum, 
one long spike with sixteen yolk-of’-egg-coloured flowers; 
Gattleya Moss'uc, nineteen flowers; Ail rides odoratum 
pnrpureum, seven long spikes; Ailrides affine, a medium 
sized specimen, with eight spikes; the larger variety of 
Oncidium ampliatum, with four long spikes, much 
branched, and full of its large, clear yellow flowers, 
an exquisite plant; Dendrvbiuni Devonianum, fifteen 
drooping spikes of light orauge-aud-purple blossoms; 
D. Nobile, full of flowers, too many for counting; 
! Sobralia macrantha, sixteen splendid blossoms on a 
moderate plant; Cattleya superba, five flowers on one 
spike, these were past the stage for exhibiting; a fine 
large plant of P ha la nop sis grandijlora; a Vanda 
Batemanii, which throws up one spike only in a season ; 
Cypripedium barbatum, twelve flowers; Sarcopodium 
Lobbii, with anew tint in Orchids: this is rather a new 
plant to country gardeners; but it has been shown two 
or threo years under auother name, namely, Bollbo- 
phyllum Henshalli —the flowers come singly on stalks 
six inches long, and the colour is orange-brown and 
cream all over; the shape of the parts is peculiar—it is 
a very nice thing when well grown. 
In the next collection, by the Messrs. Rollinson, were 
a Cattleya superha, having three flowers in the most I 
exquisite style, all purple-atid-crimson; Cypripedium 
| caudatum, with two greenish-yellow flowers, with a tail 
ten inches long, hanging down from each side of the 
pouch or slipper; a most curious thing, and only ex¬ 
ceeded by its first cousin, the Europodium Lindeni, 
which I described last week ; Cattleya eitrina, with one 
large citron-coloured flower; this and C. Aclandii have 
been many years in cultivation, but we have not yet 
succeeded in growing them to sizeable plants. Large 
Prussia verrucosa, with seventeen long spikes; Stan- 
lwpca bucephahts (Bullock’s Head), the first time I ever 
saw it at an exhibition; it is a noble kind, in the way 
of Ocmlata, with larger eyes and more of them, a great, 
bellowing, open mouth, and strong, spreading horns; 
with fine Saecalobiums, Dendrobiums, and Aiirules ol 
sorts. 
Among the other collections I noted Calanthe bicolor, 
by Mr. Williams, which l never saw before in so good a 
bloom ; it is a dwarf kind, very pretty, but not gaudy ; 
the flowers are on short upright spikes, six inches high, 
and each spike carrying from ten to fifteen flowers, of 
which the sepals, or back parts, are clear chocolate and 
the rest white; Barleria spectahilis in real good order 
at last. I think it is now twelve or fifteen years since 
Mr. Brewster sent up one of them from Mrs. Wray, at 
Cheltenham, in grand style, and this is the next that 
has been worth looking at, Mr. Wooly having got the 
knack of growing it; his plant and his flowers were not 
so fine as those from Mr. Brewster, who hod his plant 
in a crow’s-nest-like-basket of small sticks, not one of 
which was thicker than a pen-holder; the present plant 
