302 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[August 14 
nias. Hollyhocks, of good qualities, came from Messrs. 
Ghater, of Saffron Walden, and Mr. Laing, of Twickenham. 
On account of being shown in single blooms instead of 
j spikes, according to the rules, the censors could not notice 
them. Mr. Edwards sent a named collection of Carnations. 
Censors. —Messrs. Newshall, Tope of Birmingham, Ne¬ 
ville, Lochner, Edmonds, Paul, Hoyle, and Stanton.—E. Y. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
The Smooth leaved Barbadoes Cherry (Malpigliia 
glabra).—Paxtons Flower Garden, ii., 17.—This is a 
large fruit-tree, a native of the West Indian Islands, and 
an old inhabitant of our stoves, having been introduced 
in 1757. The fruit of several species of Malpigliia are 
eaten in the West Indies, under the general name of 
Barbadoes Cherry. These cherries vary in size from 
that of a large pea to a small cherry, with a smooth 
shining skin and a sweet .juicy flesh, esteemed by the 
natives, but insipid to Europeans. The Lotus-berry 
(Byrsonima coriacea), an allied fruit, is of much better 
quality. The bark of the Malpighias is a febrifuge ; 
their wood is of a deep red colour, and the leaves of 
several species are clothed, or armed, with prurient 
hairs, those of urens stinging as bad as nettles. The 
order of Malpighiads is composed of plants inhabiting 
Various parts of the tropics, and is nearly related to such 
plants as the Maples and Sycamores of colder climates. 
The genus was named by Plunder, in honour of Marcellus 
Malpighi , Professor of Medicine in the Universities of 
; Bologna, Pisa, and Messina, and afterwards (1001) chief 
! Physician and Chamberlain to Pope Innocent XII. at Rome. 
Malpighi was a voluminous author ; Wrote on the structure, 
and physiology ot plants, and was the first who applied the 
microscope in examining the circulation of the blood, but lie 
is now better known through Ids discoveries in the anatomy 
of the skin and in the structure of the tongue. The Natural 
1 Order of Malpighiads (Malpighiace®) was founded on this 
genus by Jussieu, in his Genera Plantaram, in 1780, and the 
researches of botanists have now increased the species it 
includes to more than five hundred. In general their flowers 
are showy, and their prevailing colour is pink or yellow. 
The order is better known to our gardeners through Banis- 
terias and Galphimias. In the system of Linnaeus, Malpigliia 
is in the third order of the tenth class, Decandria Trigynia. 
M. glabra has flowered in the stove of the Horticultural 
Society at Chiswick every September since 1847, but it has 
never yet borne fruit. In Barbadoes it is called the “ Red 
Cherry Tree.” In its native country it is a tree of some 
twenty feet high, but with us it is a shrub, gay for a short | 
time, “ with its bright fringed rose-coloured blossoms, grow¬ 
ing in little umbels from the axils of most of the leaves.” 
Leaves willow-shaped, smooth when old, but hairy beneath 
when young.—B. J. 
THE ERUIT-GARDEN. 
Vine Borders —( Continued, from page 289). 
Having advanced as far as the completion of the ; 
bottom level, we must proceed to the mode of filling, 
and the materials employed. 
It was before stated that stones or slates might be i 
used of about two feet square; these we would place so j 
that the edges did not quite meet; half an inch of inter¬ 
stice may be left between the stones in all directions, 
and some finely-riddled cinders, or charcoal, small as 
peas, and totally divested of dust, might be swept into 
these crevices. No doubt some persons who have taken 
a strong idea in favour of concrete, or other impervious 
and uniform bottoms, will be alarmed at this. We do 
not say there is an absolute necessity for it, but think it 
a prudent course in the majority of cases, as guarantee¬ 
ing an immediate escape to the water during wet periods. 
There need be no fear of bottom water arising to an 
improper level, if the border is well elevated, as we have 
suggested; neither of the roots descending too much 
into a pernicious subsoil. Some roots may, certainly, 
escapie; but, from long observation, we are aware that 
when vines suffer from such a case, it is more from wet 
and cold than from any pernicious matter in the subsoil. 
And now we must have some rubbly material to cover 
the stony substrature. Must! this is a hard word cer¬ 
tainly—and why ? Precisely for the same reasons that 
modern cultivators say, we must have broken, imperish¬ 
able materials over the crock, or crocks, in our garden 
pots in plant potting. Vines generally affect such mate¬ 
rials at a reasonable depth below the surface; why, is not 
particularly obvious. Such are, certainly, rapid trans¬ 
mitters of superfluous moisture. Soil, in immediate con¬ 
tact with such materials, can never become “ soured ” 
as when in contact with even surfaces. These, alone, are 
arguments sufficient to recommend their adoption. 
There is no necessity for these materials to be very 
deep : practice differs; but we advise from six to twelve 
inches. Where borders are made very deep, as is the 
practice with many still, the roots cannot surely be 
required to enter this coarse substratum. With shallow 
borders the case differs; and as vines are so partial to | 
brick rubble, plaster, &c., there can be no objection to 
their entering it; indeed, we should wish them to do so. 
Under such circumstances, then, it will be good practice 
so to compound this stratum, as that it shall at once be 
thoroughly pervious and nutritious. Coarse rubbly ma¬ 
terials may form a layer over the bottom some six inches 
deep, and these again may be cased with a mixture, in 
equal parts, of broken bricks, old plaster, and charcoal; 
and if some of what is termed half-inch boiled bone be 
added, so much the better; a foot of such, with two 
feet of a proper compost above, the volume of the latter 
one-half above the level of the front walk, will form a 
most excellent border. 
This open material must be protected from tho finer 
