February 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
shoot-like wreath, of thirteen large white blooms. An- 
grcecum virens, a smaller plant, with flowers of less 
marble-like purity and shining than those of eburneum; 
hut in that way, a large plant, at rest, of Leila super- 
biens , the very linest of all the Mexican Orchids. 1 un¬ 
packed the first plant of it that came to Europe in 1837, 
aud supplied the dried specimens from which it was 
named, and described, hut it is yet worth while for young 
gardeners to turn back and read the accounts about it. 
It blooms always in winter, and hoar frost has been 
seen not far from it, when in bloom, but on tho very 
tree on which it grew, the glass showed only down to 
30°, just four degrees above the freezing point on our 
scale. There was but one shoot in bloom on this plant 
from Tooting, and it had fifteen flowers of the most 
beautiful tints of purple, lilac, and blush. 1 never saw 
such a long shoot on superbiens before. I took it, at 
first, to bo the Cow’s Horn Orchid, from Honduras, 
Schornburkia tibicinis, which has the longest flower- 
shoot of all the Orchids we know. A large Vanda 
suavis, with several bloom-spikes, and Leptotes bicolor, 
just covering the whole pot and leaves with one mass 
of white flowers, not very large, individually, but you 
could not stick in a pin between them. 
Mr. Veitch had Barkeria Skinnerii, which I saw in 
bloom aud wroto about last December; the very same 
plants, for these Londoners cannot puzzle a prophet; so 
they havo been in flower ever since, and will keep on a 
long while yet. They would have also done so in a sit¬ 
ting-room or warm bed-room just as well; they were now 
gathered into one very large pot, and had thirty-six 
flower-spikes on the mass. Every spike had on from 
sixteen to thirty flowers of the richest crimson. Now, 1 
take credit for such surprizingness, for I bothered them 
a long while with Mr Jackson’s exhibition of it; but 
Mr. Jackson was “ sold out” of them, aud had to get a 
fresh lot imported, which will take a long while to beat the 
Londoners. Oncidium Cavendishii, a fine, large, yellow 
one, nearly as large as the 0. ampliatum major, which is 
at all the shows, and much that way, except the leaves. 
A strong large plant of Ansellia Africana from “ Clarence 
Cove,” in Fernando Po, named after Mr. Ansell, the 
young botanist who accompanied the late unfortunate 
expedition in the Niger. Mr. Veitch had also a new 
kind of Ansellia, growing moro like a strong Bletia, with 
rigid upright flower-shoots with brown and greenish 
flowers on the top, not near so good as A. Africana; 
then a large plant of a new white Galanthe from Java, 
one of the Vestita section, but with no coloured eye as 
in the first Vestitas ; a large Angracum eburneum, and a 
Gcelogyne cristata, with nine or ten short racemes of large 
white flowers, which complete Mr. Veitch's collection; 
but be had some new kinds, a small plant of the white 
new Galanthe, a dull brown Onculium in the way of 
pubes, the new Ansellia just mentioned, and a new Eu- 
lophia, with pale brown flowers on long upright stalks, 
and with no leaves. 
Mr. Wooly had a nice little plant of the Barkeria 
spectabilis, with seven flowers; Angraecum virens ; a 
Barkeria Skinnerii, with five spikes of the most crimson 
blooms; a Phalanopsis amabilis ; a large specimen of 
Epidendrum rizophorum; with numerous flowers of a 
yolk-of-egg yellow; a Cypripedium venustitm, and a Zygo- 
petalum Mackai, with very large flowers. 
Mi. Jackson, of Kingston, had a collection consisting 
of a good variety of Lycaste Skinnerii, of which there is 
no end to the varieties. Oduntoglossum membranaceum, 
a rare kind, with large white flowers, which have a 
strong - marked purple eye, barred with brown; a 
Barkeria Skinnerii grandiflora, the deep crimson va¬ 
riety ; a Galanthe curculigoides, with pale yellow flowers 
from the top part of the stalk, after the manner of a 
Tritoma scape; and an Epidendrum aurantiacum, with 
nearly the same yolk-of-egg-yellow as Rizuphormum. 
371 
There were six collections of Chinese Primula, and six 
plants in each, chiefly of large, fringed, red and white 
ones; one collection had two reds, two whites, and two 
lavender-coloured blooms. The best grown lot had no 
name of exhibitor; by some mistake the address did not 
reach the office. I think Mr. Green, gardener to Sir. 
Ed. Antrobus, had the first prize for the six Primulas. 
Mr. Chilman, gardener to Mrs. Smith, Ashtead House, 
Epsom, had a good collection of them also, and would 
have had tho best prize, were it not that his plants had 
rather more heat, or more confinement, lately than is 
good for them. We were told that this Chinese Primrose 
is all but hardy, if it is kept rather dry; that plants of it 
were now in fine bloom, at the Garden of the Society, 
between the glass-walls, where it was only two degrees 
warmer than the open air, so that they stood 16° or 17° 
of frost lately without any harm, but they were not in 
pots. Mr. McEwen, gardener to the Duke of Norfolk, 
had a double white one, all in very strong bloom and 
health. The society, also, had their six in good style. 
I forget the rest of the growers of these Primroses, hut 
I must stop to say, that I never saw so many fine 
blooms of them near London, and that the best of these 
wero but second-rate in size and in colours to what 
I have seen in Ipswich, with Mr. Latter, the best grower 
of them in England. I must also state thus publicly, 
that a Mr. Wild, at Ipswich, is advertising seeds of them, 
and is using my name for bis authority for superior 
merit without my authority, for I have not the slightest 
idea of what he offers for sale. The fact is, if ever I see 
my name thus used again by any one, I shall write to 
the Lord Chancellor, to send the culprit to Balaklava at 
once, and there let him stick in the mud till I give him 
a helping hand. 
There was one collection of six kinds of nice 
Cinerarias, but not named sorts, from Mr. Todman, 
gardener to Mrs. Buckmaster, of Clapbam Park, 
who had also several other good collections in tho 
room, and whose name is new to me in the prize lists. 
He had six strong plants of Lachenalia tricolor, an old 
useful spring bulb; also three Epacrises, of which 
Fairbairnii is the best light flesh-coloured I have yet 
seen. The others were Hyacinthce flora, paler than 
Fairbairnii; and another, a lighter still. Mr. Veitch 
had three kinds of Epacrises, fine, large plants : Vivid, 
the darkest crimson yet seen; Gandidissima, the best 
white; and another, which 1 forget. Mr. Ingram, 
director of her Majesty’s Gardens at Windsor, had three 
dwarf seedling Epacrises of his own raising. 
Like his Royal mistress, Mr. Ingram is fond of cross 
seedlings, aud is a very successful cross-breeder, and 
just that sort of man you would like to see going round 
the garden with a right royal party. He asked me 
“ how long this weather was to last;” and told me his 
new crosses were, indeed, real dwarfs naturally, and not 
made so by stopping, as most of us thought at first sight. 
The best bright crimson one is called Ingramii, after 
himself. Miniata rosea is the next, and the name tells 
its story. The third is Grandiflora natia, but tbe crim¬ 
son and the white are clearer than in the old Grandiflora. 
They were not higher than ten or twelve inches from the 
pot, but broad and busby, like some close-growing 
Heaths; and I consider them a great acquisition, as most 
amateurs find it difficult to grow the old style of Epacris 
into good close specimens. Mr. Veitch had five or six 
very large Epacrises out in the passage, as the room could 
not hold all. 
There were three large Camellias from Mr. Higgs, 
gardener to Mrs. Brown, Putney Heath: Firnbriata, 
the best white of all the Camellias ; Donhleari, the 
boldest of the variegated class ; and a blush-striped one, 
called Punctata major. Mr. Higgs had also, in a pot, 
the finest branch of flowers I have ever seen of any 
Acacia. It was from four to five feet high, branched 
