IIaech ;j. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
nmoena has the flowers in heads very much like Pentas 
canted, or between that and the head of an Ixora. They 
tire also very free bloomers, and the flowers hold on a 
long time; the whole family are easy to grow, and the 
plants are highly deserving of e.'cteiided cultivation.:- 
'J’here were cut branches of Acacia dealbata, or ajfinis, 
or the Green Wattle iMimosa of the Australian diggings, 
loaded with golden flowei’s ; from a tree twenty feet high, 
which has stood out in the open air at Taunton for 
many years, and is one of the fastest growing trees of 
the whole order to which they belong. This handsome 
tree is often cut down to the ground in other ]ilaces by 
severe winters: but then it is so very easy to increase it 
from seeds, or cuttings, that the loss need hardly be felt. 
I once had a lot of seedlings of it, and planted one of 
them in a new, deep, rich bed, in a rock garden, and in 
thi-ee years it was eighteen feet high, and was loaded 
with flowers all the winter; but 1 could do no good with 
it, nor with any of the small-leaved section of the tribe, 
on chalky soil; while Acacia verticillata, and its kin¬ 
dred, did better on chalk than 1 ever saw them on other 
soils. The dealbala and verticillata breeds would 
always endure ton or twelve degrees of frost without I 
flinching. 
' There were two specimens of other Acacias, Unifolia 
I and ixyoplujlla, line bushy plants, in full bloom, from 
the garden of the Society; and some Camellias, which 
were terribly nipped by the cold winds on the journey, ^ 
although they travelled in a close-covered van ; also fine 
plants of Echeveria rosea and retiisa. The rosea has the 
habit of the old Crassula (Kalosanthes) cocciiiea, and, 
like it, blooms at the end of the shoots in conical heads i 
of deep rosy flowers. The succulent leaves are also of a 
reddish tint in winter. This Echeveria might be grown 
into a largo comjiact specimen, as they do the scarlet 
C'rajfsuZa for the June and July c,\hibitions; and there 
is not a plant in our Dictionary that would sull'er less 
from a month’s confinement in a drawing-room. Indeed, 
all the Echeverias are eminently useful for room plants 
in winter, and they are as liardy and as easy to grow 
and keep as a common Cactus. 
The Society has a very good variety of Fraiiciscca 
hijdranijcatformis, and its merit, explained to us in the ; 
lecture, is that it docs not die oil’ at the ends of the [ 
leaves, as all the others almost invariably do, under all 
kinds of treatment. 1 am rather surprised to see the I 
Society exhibiting jilants, like the present, under false 
names, when they offer medals for the correct naming , 
of plants. [ have shown long since, in The Cottage | 
Gardeneu, that there is no such name as Franciscea by 
law established, and the same is pointed out in the 
“Vegetable Kingdom,” our best authority in this 
country. ) 
The sweet-scented Rhijnchospennnm jasminoides, from 
China, was in the Society’s group, trained round sticks 
in a pot, but it was so frost-bitten that strangers could 
not see the value of it at all. We have had it often 
talked about in these pages as a good plant to train out 
against a wall, whore it will flower from Juno to August. 
In-doors it blooms in the spring; it will also stand the 
j heat of a stove, and the small white flowers are as sweet 
as anything. 
! There was a fine speciman of Epacris onosmwjlora in 
I the Society’s collection, with some other varieties of 
I these useful plants; and a largo bunch of cut flowers 
from the Hon. Mr. Strangways, among which were 
♦ The Rogiera ainmna can scarcely be distinguished from 72. Me- 
nerhmtiy a drawing of which is in the second volume of Paxton''s Flower 
Garden. They are both natives of Guatemala, and both are described 
by M. Planchon in his account of the penus in the Flore de Serres. A 
drawing of Rogiera aniGenn is in the first volume of Paxtoidn Flower 
Garden, and it will be found described in The Cottage Gardener's Dic¬ 
tionary as Rondeletia thyrsoidea, from which genus, with some other 
species, it is now separated. 7'he name of the new genus is in honour of 
I M. Hogier, one of the Belgian statesmen, who is a patron of gardening 
and farming.—E d. C. G. 
421 j 
some fine hardy specimens of Helleborus, quite as good 
and more showy than even our old Christmas Rose 
(flelleborus niyer), H. oUimpiciim, is a nice blush flower, 
which any one may grow in a commoTi border; also a 
Russian species,with whitish-yellow flowers,very pretty; 
it is called Helleborus Ohamschapicum ; and some others, 
all of which are winter or spring-flowering hardy her¬ 
baceous plants that every one ought to grow who has a 
garden. Very few gardeners pronounce the name Helle¬ 
borus right; they put the accent on the o, instead of the 
last e. 
Euphorbia meloformis was among the cut flowers. A i 
Cape plant, which, in Dorsetshire, stands out ttie winter 
close by the sea-side, forming a handsome evergreen 
bush, but the flowers are not of much account. 
Among Fruits, there was a very handsome Proridence 
Pine Apple, from Mr. Dodds, gardener to Colonel Baker, 
of Salebury. It weighed full nine pounds, and was very j 
regular in the pips. There were three beautiful bunches 
of Muscat of Alexandria Orapes, that would keep till 
Apiil, with ordinary justice; and Mr. 8now. gardener 
to Earl de Grey, sent a disli of six Dessert Pears, in 
excellent keeping; and wo were told that all these kind 
of pears were over some time since in tlie Loudon 
fruit-rooms. 
From Her AIa.jesty’s garden at Windsor we had a 
bundle of 100 Asjtaragns, weighing twelve pouuds ; the 
finest that ever was seen. 'L’hey were from beds that 
are heated by liot-water pipes; the plants planted out as 
in an open air bed, and each bod is forced every other 
year, and of all the forcing wo ever heard of, this is the 
most successful; and, what is better than all. everybody 
seems delighted to liear that the Queen wins a jirize ; 
and, when the meeting is over, they all flock to have a 
sight of Her Majesty's produce. 
There is auotlier feature at these meetings that I 
never told of yet; people from all jiarts of the country 
bring up pieces of new or very rare plants to get the 
right names of them, and if there is no nurseryman or 
gardener there who happens to know such things, tlie 
lecturer is appealed to without ceremony, and the thing 
is soon settled. On this occasion, a friend of mine had 
a handful of Stauntonia latifolia, an Asiatic hardy 
evergreen climber, which grows as fast as a Hop. Tliis 
now plant has not been mentioned in The Cottage 
Gakdenee yet, but I had it in my eye for sometime, 
froin seeing it at Mr. Jackson’s nursery, and from being 
everybody’s plant. It is as useful as the Ivy for cover¬ 
ing trees; and it will cover as much in four years as 
the Ivy does in ten. The green is as deep and rich as 
that of Ivy ; but Stauntonia does not cling to anything, 
like the Ivy and Virginian Creejier, nor with clasps like 
the Grape Vino and Passion Flower. It must be led 
for awliile at first, and as it gets strong it will twine 
itself to any support. The whole plant is quite smooth ; 
the leaves without stipules. They come in threes, like 
some huge Kennedya, and each of them is of the size of 
a Sweet Bay leaf, and deep green all the year round. 
The flowers are not much better than those of the Ivy. 
The fruit is a kind of lougish berry, not good to eat, but 
harmless. It seems to be as hardy as we want any 
plant to be for this climate. Wlioever wants a Iniud- 
some, hardy, evergreen, fast-growing, strong climber, 
this is one of the very best and newest of that class. 
The next to it, and belonging to tlie same group, is 
Lardizabala triternata, a Chilian climber, whicli is not, 
perhaps, quite so hardy as Stauntonia latifolia. The i 
genus was named by Decandolle, and, I believe, after 
Sir George Staunton. The natural order to which it 
belongs is called Lardizabalads, a hard name given by ! 
Deoaisne, in IKJV, and since adopted by Eiidlicher, j 
Bindley, and other first-rate dealers in hard names. 
Kadsurads and Menispermads are very nearly related to 
these Lardizabalads. \ 
