December 80. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 235 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
U D 
DEC. 30, 1852.— JAN. n, 1853. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. Itain in In. 
1 
Sun 
Kiscs. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
U. &S. 
Moon’s Clock 
Age* aft. Sun. 
1 
Day of i 
Year. ! 
130 Til 
Snowdrop flowers. 
30.488 — 30.398 40—21 
s.w. — 
9 a. 8 
6/ a. 3 
8 19 
19 3 1 
365 
31 F 
Winter Tortoise Moth found. 
30.202 — 30.011 36—28 
s.w. — 
9 
58 
9 37 
20 . 3 30 
366 
1 S 
Circumcision. 
29.956 — 29.789 35—21 
w. — 
8 
IV 
10 a 5d 
21 3 69 
1 
2 Sun 
2 Sunday after Christmas. 
29.694 — 29.637 41—26 
s.w. — 
8 
0 
morn. 
C “ 27 
2 
8 M 
Ap:onum vaporariorum. 
29.746—29.512 49—38 
s.w. U 2 
8 
2 
0 16 
23 4 54 
3 ] 
4 Tu 
Sphodrus planus; cellars. 
30.122 — 29.539 44—20 
N.W. 01 
6 
3 
1 36 
24 5 22 
4 ^ 
5 W 
Dromius rufescens; bark. 
30.093—30.064 45—29 
S.W. — 
8 
4 
3 0 
25 5 49 
5 
JIeteorology OF THE Week.—A t Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 42.5°and 31.4“ respectively. The greatest heat, 56“, occurred on the 30th in 1833 ; and the lowest cold, 12“, on the 3rd 
in 1827. During the period 107 d^iys were fine, and on 08 rain fell. 
THE IMPERIAL PAULOWNIA. 
{Puiilownia imperialis.) 
This large-leaved tree is now well known in our gardens, 
and is liardy in the southern districts of England. It was 
first discovered hy Thuiiberg, in .Tapan, where it rises to 
thirty or forty feet; he named it Bignonia tomentosa, hut it 
does not belong to Bignoniads, as is cuiTently believed, and 
as we shall presently show. Dr. Siebold was the next 
European traveller who found it, and brought home speci¬ 
mens of it, from which it was described by him and I’ro- 
fessor Zuccarini, in their “ Flora Japonica,” and the name 
they gave, and which it retains, is in honour of the name 
of the Hereditary Princess of the Netherlands, who was 
daughter to the Emperor of Russia. It was first raised 
from seeds, in the Garden of Plants, in Paris, in 1834, by 
M. Neuman, who received them “from a person to whom 
they had been sent from .Tapan in little porcelain pots.” 
Out of this consignment only one seed vegetated, and the 
plant received greenhouse treatment at first, as did the first 
Larch-trees that were introduced into Scotland, by the Duke 
of Atliol. As late as 1840, M. Neuman could not deter¬ 
mine whether or not liis seedling from the porcelain pot 
was the same as the plant represented in the “ Flora 
.Taponica,” and there was not a second plant of it then 
known to be in Europe. So that Dr. Siebold was not he 
who first introduced Prndou-inn, as is generally supposed. 
IVhen the tree seeded at Paris, in 1842-8, it was dis¬ 
covered, from the nature and formation of the seed, that 
the tree belongs to the Figworts (Scrophulariace.ari, and not 
to Bignoniads, to which it is still referred by some winters. 
The error is easily accounted for, from the fact, that there is 
nothing to distinguish the one from the other in the form¬ 
ation of the flowers. The real difference in the kindred 
orders being found in the seeds. Thus, the popular English 
name of Foxglove-tree is botanically correct, in addition to 
the good idea it gives of the flowers which are produced 
from the end of the branches in close panicles or thyrses. 
They are as wide in the mouth, but not (piite so long as 
those of the Foxglove, and of a greyish-violet colour, with 
an agreeable fragrance. The nearest affinity of Paulownia 
is with the WiglUia of Dr. IVallich, in the same section of 
Figworts as the Pentstemon. The Paulownia was first 
figured in this counti-y, in 1841, in Mrs. Loudon’s Ladies' 
Magazine of Gardening. It was well represented in Paxton’s 
Magazine of Botany, in 1842, but the first from English- 
born flowers is in the Botanical Magazine, t. 40C0. In 1843, 
it flowered for the first time in England, in the greenhouse 
of Mrs. Wray, of Cheltenham, who sent specimens of them 
to the writer. But it was at Claremont, we believe, that it 
first flowered in the open air. In the system of Linna;us 
it belongs to the second order of the fourteenth class, 
Didynamia Anyiospermia. 
The Bishop of Exeter, in whose grounds at Bishopstowe, 
near Torquay, it has bloomed, describes the fragrance as 
“ violet-like,” but that the tree, as in the Glycine, loses 
much of its beauty by producing its flowers before its leaves. 
B. J. 
Propagation and Culture .—This fine tree is just as easily 
increased as are potatoes ; and something in the same way, 
by thick slices, or short pieces of the roots, without the 
trouble of looking for eyes; and they will grow in any kind 
of earth, from stiff hard clay to the poorest sandy soil. 
While it is in a young, small state it is very liable to be 
much cut by frost: hence the reason why we see so few of 
them grown as fine standards, ivith ten feet or more of clear, 
straight stem ; although it may be made to make a growth 
of ten feet in one season. An English gentleman, writing 
from Paris, in 1841, said that he had seen a growth of it 
made that season to the extent of fourteen feet; and from 
him I had the first plant of it. If any one wishes to have 
this tree as a low spreading bush, he has only to plant a 
small specimen in good rich soil and let it take its chance. 
It is naturally of a very spreading habit, and will extend a 
long way, carrying immense leaves ; and 1 fear that is all 
that it is good for in most parts of this country. At any 
rate, give it the same treatment as Rhubarb, jilanting it in 
low sheltered situations, and cut it down to the ground the 
first two years, and it will produce leaves quite as large as 
an ordinary rhubfu’b leaf. That is just how I would manage 
it for a small garden. But for a standard, I would endeavour 
to got a good clean stem as long as possible before I would 
allow it to spread. The quickest way to get such a tree 
would be to begin with a strong plant from a nursery, to 
plant it late in April, in a sheltered, warm place, near a wall 
or building, and in a pit filled with the richest stuff or com¬ 
post about a garden ; to let it grow there three years, but 
for the first two years to cut it down clean to the ground 
bel'ore the frost, and in the third season to confine the 
growth to one stem, and not to let that stem branch ; then, 
before the frost, to tie this growth up to a strong pole, and 
to thatch it with straw for that winter. Next spring, remove 
it to a dry, poor soil, and open situation. D. Beaton. 
No. CCXXII., VoL. IX. 
