November 14. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
117 
House of Commons, Lord Charles Wellesley, and the Duke I 
of Bedford, competed in the higher clases, and several 1 
others, whose names being less familiar to my ear, 1 
forget just now, and some will be found among my j 
notes, lower down. 
There was a visible 'jiggle all over the audience when \ 
the lecturer read a letter from Sussex about Potatoes; i 
in which it was stated, that the writer had no faith in 
“ the deductions of science,” nor on the voluminous 
outpourings of practice, in reference to keeping Potatoes 
sound; but that the writer had, himself, discovered the 
only true remedy at last,—that of dusting the affected 
Potatoes with wood and turf ashes, and, I think, with 
some other kind of ashes as well; that being the very 
“ deduction ” which was recommended by the throe 
commissioners whom Sir Robert Peel sent over to Ireland 
about the Potato disease, on its first breaking out; and 
we all remembered that the lecturer himself was orio of 
the three commissioners ; so the first and last “ deduc¬ 
tions” squared to a tee, and seem to be the best remedy 
after all. Now to my note-book. 
The newest and best plant in the room was from Mr. 
Veitch, a species of Sonerilci called, or to be called, 
maculata. This plant was among the first which took 
my fancy at the July show of this society, among Mr. 
Veitch’s new plants with ornamental leaves. It will bo 
found in my report of that show ; but it was not then in 
flower. It is one of those charming little plants which 
one can never forget after once seeing it; the leaf is not 
quite so largo as a Peach leaf, but in that way, and of a 
darker green; the surface is regularly dotted in lines 
with white dots, about the size of a pin’s-head ; the 
growth is low and bushy at first, then comes a sarmentose 
growth, like that of a Strawberry plant; but woody, short, 
firm runners issue out from all round the plant, and at 
from four to six inches another plant is formed at the 
end of each runner, just like that on a Strawberry. 
From this first plant two more runners go right and loft, 
and each of them produce a plant at the end of four 
inches, and so on they go all round, till, at last, the whole 
pot is covered with a dense mass of leaves aud slender 
branches ; and such leaves! but the flowers eclipse them ; 
for from every one of the tuft-like growths, and from the 
old mother, all over rise slender flower-stems, three or four 
inches high, and each of them carry from five to twelve 
bright, pink, starry flowers, coming up in succession. You 
never saw such pretty things in all your life. The very 
stamens, inside, give a peculiar grace to the whole; they 
are bright orange, are shaped like the head of an arrow 
(sagittate), and incline to one side at an angle of forty 
or fifty. The whole plant was not above eight or nine 
inches high, and double that accross the pot. All the 
species of Sonerila, we were told, are dwarf plants from 
India, well deserving of all our care; the accent is on 
the i, and sounds like y, thus Soneryla. There were six 
“ runners,” or young plants, in bloom round the large 
pot in 60-sized pots, just the sort of gems for which 
country gardeners are often teased to provide for glasses, 
or little fancy stands in the drawing-room, and on the 
corners of the mantle-piece. These gems are now being 
sold as fast as they can propagate them, for just twenty- 
one shillings, or say about one-fourth their value; but 
they increase so easily that they can afford to sell them 
cheap. 
Two fine, new winter-flowering hybrid Fuschias come 
next in Mr. Veitch’s collection. The noble hybrid from 
Spiectabilis, which is named Dominianum, after their 
foromau, is one of the handsomest and boldest looking 
plants for a conservatory which is now in the market; 
aud the other, a cross between two species, Serratifolia 
and Simplicicaulus, and called Penclulina, is a good 
impr-n-romeut on Serratifolia, in flower, leaf, and habit, 
and u a great acquisition for our stock of winter- 
flowering plants, without forcing. Messrs. Veitch also 
showed cut-branches of a new variety of Pernettya 
mucronata, called Speciosa. It looks exactly like Mu- 
cronata, but was loaded with purplish berries, as close 
as they could stand—a charming contrast to Cotoneaster 
microphylla in full fruit. 
Orchids were the next part of Messrs. Veitch’s con¬ 
tribution; and we begin with the beautiful blue Vanda 
cccrulea, which is now a regular visitor in November. 
It had three spikes of flowers, and the flowers were of 
the lightest blue. After it the seldom-seen Angr/ccum 
bilobum, with six drooping spikes, crowded with blush- 
white blooms from end to end; then four large plants of i 
Bark&ria SJcinnerii —the lighter variety—with teu or 
fifteen long upright-blooming shoots on each plant. I 
bothered the London growers, for the last two winters, ] 
about the Barlcerias, saying we could do them herea- 
bouts so much better than in the London smoke, and I 
hero is the result. It was not the Society’s medals that ! 
brought out these three Barlcerias, —not a bit of it; ! 
but only another instance in proof that tho British Lion ! 
will not bo bearded in his deti with impunity, any more j 
than the Scotch Thistle; and, if we are beaten this 
time, we shall try again and again before we give up to 
these Londoners. Two varieties of Galanthe vestita, 
with large white flowers on curved stalks, one plain 
eyed, and one with the deep purple eye. These beautiful- 
ground Orchids have the same habit as Nerine among 
bulbs; they “ throw up” in the autumn, continue to 
grow with us all through the winter aud spring, and go 
to rest by Midsummer; so that they are under the dis¬ 
advantage of the strongest heat of our stoves at the 
dullest season, after the leaves are full formed. A tall 
Aerides suavissima, four feet high, and clothed to the 
pot, had two long racemes of blush-white flowers of the 
sweetest odour; and a large Vanda, with brown-speckled 
flowers, the plant as tall as a man, and well furnished 
throughout. 
Mr. Wooly, gardener to E. B. Ker, Esq., had two j 
most charming ground Orchids, the most suited for a 
drawing-room table of all the tribe; they are called 
CceJugyne Walliehianum and C. maculatum, in gardens ; 
but Mr. Wooly bad the right name,— Pleione. The 
former, or Wallichianvm, had fifteen flowers of a deep 
purple colour ; and maculatum had thirty full open, or 
in bud. They are snow-white, with a richly-spotted and 
stained lip. These plants are grown in flat wide-mouthed 
pots; the bulbs are half-covered in the mould; the 
flowers rise, singly, before the leaves, all over the pot, 
and the surface is covered with live moss, so that one 
might think they were cut flowers stuck in the moss as 
thick as they could stand; and a reference to this was 
made in the lecture, so that people might not run away 
with that idea. We were also told, that for a long time 
the proper culture of these Pleiones was not under¬ 
stood, and tho plants were not seen in perfection, until 
it was discovered that the roots or bulbs grow naturally, 
like our Crocus, first carpeting the ground with their 
naked flowers, after this clothing it with their leaves 
in the hot, rainy season ; and then going entirely 
to rest for some months. They also exhibit tho little- 
understood character of Nerine,— requiring double tho 
usual heat in winter, and while their leaves are green, 
and resting from the end of June in a comparative 
coolness till the flowers “come of themselves,” late in 
the autumn. There was a specimen-plant of Cijpripe- 
dium venustum, more than a yard in diameter, and car- 
rying no less than thirty-eight flowers of the largest 
size—a splendid example of the best treatment. This ! 
plant was from strangers to the London boards, the 
Messrs. Wood and Ingram, nurserymen of Huntingdon, j 
The only other Orchid for competition was a small 
Barheria elegans, from — Rosher, Esq., St. John’s 
Wood; who also sent a Rhododendron Javanicum in 
bloom, and some others. 
