! May 15.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
95 
At the show at Oxford, Mr. Bates exhibited Geraniums 
without sticks, short, strong, wide, well-grown plants, 
which of course took the prize against drawn plants 
unable to sustain themselves, and, therefore, propped all 
over. We are happy to record this, and hope the ex¬ 
ample may be followed. 
A Society has just started under the highest auspices 
at Hereford, the rules of which are good. The judges 
are to be selected from among the most experienced cen¬ 
sors, and all subjects to be judged by the standards laid 
down in “ Glenny’s Properties of Flowers and Plants.” 
The Principal Tent in the Horticultural Gardens is 
now between four and five hundred feet in length, nearly 
two hundred feet having been added since last year. 
Several nurserymen have engaged to supply Plants to 
the Chrystal Palace. Messrs. Ren die, of Plymouth; 
Bragg, of Slough; Loddiges, of Hackney; Lane, of 
Berkhampstead ; and others, occupy prominent stations. 
These gentlemen have undertaken a task of the extent of 
which they are hardly aware. The continued supply of fresh 
plants, as others fade, will he more trouble than they calcu¬ 
late on; hut the effect of plants upon the scene is very 
beautiful. 
At Chiswick, Carnations and Picotees are to he shown 
in their Pots. Of course, with all the advantages of 
carding and retaining all the blooms, whether split or 
not, and without any inference to the rules by which cut 
flowers are judged. 
Instead of four-and-twenty blooms being stuck in a two- 
foot square box, there will be as many plants side by side, 
and a great benefit of this will be found in the additional 
comfort of the exhibitors, who, if they wish to look at one 
flower, do not prevent others from inspecting the remainder, 
which is always the case when the whole twen ty-four are 
crammed into one little box. 
The Chiswick Gardens have a very pretty addition 
made to them by Mr. Waterer, who has planted a splen¬ 
did collection of choice American plants very tastefully, 
and, in fact, seems almost to have transferred the picked 
specimens of his whole nursery. This cannot fail to be 
attractive. 
We are glad to see that the fashion of Ladies carrying 
Bouquets at evening parties, the theatres, and in their 
carriages while out only for a drive, is on the increase. 
A young lady at a ball, without a nosegay, is set down for 
a deserted one ; but ladies begin to understand that a bou¬ 
quet from a nursery, and one from Covent Garden, are very 
different things. In Covent Garden, almost all kinds of 
flowers are picked to pieces, and wire put to each bit for a 
stalk ; it is, therefore, no use to put them in water: a 
Covent Garden nosegay is the most artificial thing imagi¬ 
nable. The only way to make a good one is to buy the indi¬ 
vidual sprigs required, and tie them together; one of this 
kind will live for days, and is worth a dozen stilted on wires. 
E. Y. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
Water-Soldier-like Pjstia, or Water Lettuce 
(Pistia Stratiotes).—Botanical Magazine, t, 4565.—This 
genus was named by Linn tens from pistillum, the pistil, 
or female organ of a flower, in allusion to the shape of 
the spathe, or hollow leaf-like membrane which incloses 
the flowers, as in Arum; and the specific name is derived 
from that of another water plant., Stratiotes, or Water- 
Soldier, from stratos, an army; the leaves of Stratiotes 
being shaped like a sword. In the classification of Lin- 
lHEus, Pistia is placed in the twenty-second class Dicecia, 
having the male organs in one flower, and the female in 
another flower, as in the Melon. Richards founded a 
natural order, Pistiacece, or Duckweeds, on this genus in 
1815, which is acknowledged by Enlicher, Lindley, and 
others. Decandolle, however, turns this order into 
Lemnacea. Pistia Stratiotes is a tropical, fresh-water, 
floating plant, frequenting the surface of ponds, tanks, 
and other still waters; as Lenina, or Duckweed, does 
I with us; and now that the flowering of the Victoria 
Water Lily has given a great stimulus to the cultivation 
of water plants in this country, this addition to the num¬ 
bers that will soon be subjected to the arts of the British 
gardener, though amongst the smallest, is certainly not 
the least interesting either as an object of botanical 
science, or as covering the surface of a corner of the 
water-tank in which the more conspicuous water-plants 
are cultivated. 
In Jamaica, this Pistia grows in water-tanks to such an 
extent as to impregnate the water with its acrid principle so 
much, that it is very dangerous to use the water in hot, dry 
weather, as has been stated by Patrick Brown, the Irish 
botanist, who wrote the natural history of the island. Sir 
W. Hooker very justly observes, that although this plant 
has no tloral beauty to recommend it, yet a more graceful 
object floating on the water, clothed in the tenderest green 
imaginable, cannot well be seen. It is in beauty through¬ 
out summer and autumn; and, with a little care, plenty of 
young plants may be preserved until the following spring, 
when they revive, and produce off-sets. 
Boots, if they are entitled to the name, long and feathery. 
Leaves from two to five inches long, slightly concave in the 
middle, but bent back at the edge, wedge-shaped, most 
delicate pea-green, velvety to the touch, and mealy beneath. 
The flowers are a mere green scale at the base of the inner 
leaves, containing a club or spadix, as in the Arum, crowned 
with a circle of five anthers. Beneath this scale is another, 
round and two-cleft, containing the seed-vessel, crowned 
with one pistil. 
Stotted Hydromestus (Hydromestus maculatus ).— 
