458 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
ISIakch 17. 
the old forcers, hut not a llorist’s maximum, though not 
the worse tor all that. It is very difficult, however, to 
make sure of the value of a forcing Geranium at lirst 
sight. Most gardeners know that many kinds of Gera¬ 
niums will flower in winter if they are not cut down at 
the usual time in the autumn ; hut then, such plants are 
well nigh over hy this lime ; but the one in (piestion had 
only opened the first flowers the week before, and, from 
the (piantity of flower buds, it will keep in bloom to the 
I midillo or end of April, and it did not show the least 
! symptom of “ drawing” from being forced so early, if, 
I indeed, it had been I'orced at all. The grower gave it 
I no chance of being fairly criticised. If it is intended to 
“ eoiuo out,” wo ought to have had its history from first 
to last. 1 have groat hopes of it. 
Mr. Young, nurseryman, Godaiming, sent three speci- 
nnms of that beauliful dwarf Ch/ 7 )/v’S.s', called (/ovenii, or 
Govenuma, which I have so ol'teu recommended, and 
whicli everybody admires. Two of them were in fruit, 
and the third in full flower, with the pollen so ripe and 
abundant, that if you shook the plant between you and 
the wind you would ho covered all over, like the “dusty 
miller," with the yellow powder or pollen. This is the 
first time, I believe, that this elegant evergreen has 
been seen in fruit in this country, at least, ]iubiicly: and 
it was a mark of particular attention, on the part oi'Mr. 
Young, towards the Society, who introduced this Cy]iress, 
to go to the trouble to take up these plants, and to pot 
them on jmrpose to he sent for exhibition. Tlic two 
jihints witli cones on them looked as if they were dis¬ 
tinct from the one in flower, they were so much of a 
darker green colour, but that could hardly bo, seeing 
that it is one of the private marks for these Cypresses, 
that male and female flowers are on the same plant, but 
on separate parts, like our nut and filbert trees. The 
fruit cones are dark purple, and about the same size 
as those of the common evergreen, or Italian Cypress, 
but alter you once saw them you could distinguish 
one of them in the dark, by the feel, from the cones 
of any other known Cypress. The cone, which is 
ne.arly round, ends in a sharp point, and there are four 
more sharp points about the middle of it, at equal dis¬ 
tances, thus— ■ • When the scales of a conifer, 
■ 
or cone fruit, end in projections, they call them mu- 
cromtte in books ; but when the projections are so very 
sharp, they ought to be called “ touch me nots.” 1 have 
been thus particular to save the column “ To Corre- 
s]»ondents,” in wdiich some say there is no difference 
between this and the Cypress called macrocarpa, and 
that tnncrocarpa is different from Lamhertiana, which it 
certainly is not, not even so different as a fruiting plant 
of Goveniana is from one of the same kind in flower. 
1 saw another curiosity bearing on this subject, the 
other day, in Ylr. Jackson’s nursery — the beautiful 
Taxnilium semperrirens in flower for the first time in 
Europe, as far as I know of. This is another Conifer, 
and, perhaps, the fastest grower of all the evergreen 
trees we possess. And here is a jicg on which 1 must 
hang a severe reprimand, in passing, to some first-rate 
gardeners, who neglect the right management of this 
Tiixoiliiim, and leave it to wild nature in our moist 
climate. We all know the sad effects of allowing the 
Italian Cypress (Gupressus sempercirens) to grow up in 
its own way in our terrace gardens, which way leads to 
many side leading shoots, and these shoots, after a few 
years, get so toir-heavy, that they all sjwcad out from 
the pyr.'imid, especially when loaded with snow, or 
heavy rains, that they must ho tinkered and fastened 
back to the main leader with copper wire, tar ropes, and 
goodness knows with what other clumsy contrivances 
besides; whereas, if they were stopped in time, and so 
kept stopjicd from year to year, as the tree grew on, we 
should at least obtain a perfect ityramid of evergreen, 
that no wind or violence could make a breach into—the 
whole sides, from top to bottom, being as close and stiff 
as a well-kept hedge of holly or hawthorn. It is much 
the same with this Ta.rodiiim. In our moist climate it 
grows out of all bounds in a few- years, and in a few 
more it looks as gawky as a Malay cockerel on yellow 
stilts; but if you take it in time, and stop the ends of 
all the side-shoots, kcejiiug an eye to the pyramidal 
form, it is possible to bring it out as perfect, and com- 
]iact, and as feathered from the bottom, as Mr. Stur¬ 
geon’s “ I’atriarch,” or even his “ Jerry ” himself 
Mr. llarnos, nurseryman in Camberwell, sent six 
plants in bloom of a ground Orchid, a native of Bar 
hary {Orchis Intigicornu), and they looked as fresh and 
gay as if they were growing at homo. If we could but 
grow our own native orchids in this free style, wlui.t 
a triumph it would bo to British gardening. Air. 
Barnes has earned his laurels already for his success 
in growing plants, and tliis must he an extfa feather in | 
his cap. 
Air. Henderson, of Pine-apple Place, had a beautiful 
little plant exhibited of the new SihJiini Bhododeu- 
droH, called cilinris. It was hardly nine inches above ! 
the ])ot, yet it was loaded with largo blush-coloured 
flowers. The same kind was shown before us last 
sjuing, when I told all about it, but now it looks 
more of a little man than a seedling, and surely, if all 
the little men in the world were so gay and tem])ting, 
there wordd bo fewer bachelors; at any rate, cditiris 
should bo spoused directly, and to none more fittingly 
than to Azalea hulica vnriegata; the next best w'ould be. 
ex(juisitn ; after that, the largest and best-shaped ol’ the 
pure white Chinas. The substance and colour of cili¬ 
nris arc unexceptionable, but to get the shape of it into 
the fashion it would need a hoop inside, to stretch out 
the edges a little more; but the first cross wdth variegatn 
would do all that, and improve the foliage wonderfully, 
and woidd, probably, render them less liable to the 
attacks of their natural enemy, the dreadful thrip. 
There was a slender shoot, seven or eight feet long, 
of a small-leaved Acacia called Biccana, lying across 
the table, covered all over with the usual golden flowers 
so peculiar to these graceful plants. It was only a mere 
feather, plucked off one of the largo Acacias in the 
Society’s conservatory, and they had a new Bogiera, at 
least, new to mo, called Boezlii. It is not so good as 
Bogiera amcena, mentioned in my last report, but in 
that style. 
There were, also, from the garden of the Society, 
six kinds of the Ghinese Primrose, double wliito-and- 
red, red-and-white fringed, a good dark red, and a 
cut-leaved or jagged-flow'er kind, which I never saw' i 
before, all grown in the style of TiOndon growers; but I 
the Londoners are a century behind Ijiswich and Bath i 
in the growth of this flower. It is quite evident that > 
the strong yellow loam which they use so much about ' 
London is entirely unfit for growing this Primula; and 
as to colour, this soil seems to destroy it altogether. A 
very good grower of this plant, whom I could name, 
and whose third-rate flowers are infinitely better than 
the best of them I ever saw in London, never uses a 
jrarticle of loam at all for them. His comjiost is made _ 
of very rotten vegetable matter and the oldest cowdiing 
ho can get, with a good portion, or say a sixth ]>art, 
silver sand. What wo gardeners call the “rubbish 
heap,” or where all the refuse of the garden rots toge¬ 
ther, is his resource when he w'ants a magnum honum 
China Pi-imrose; and from the day he sows the seeds 
till his plants are in full bloom, he never allows the sun 
to shine upon them for one half-hour; and wdien he has 
a plant which he calls a “ good un,” he never w’aters it 
by the surface of the pot, after the last shift, but by a 
saucer, and the saucer is only allovvcd to stand under 
the 2 )ot so many hours. What he calls “ a free and , 
