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August 28 .J 
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THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
329 
completely a class by themselves, provided for separately, 
that the having hut one class would easily he under¬ 
stood to he open to both. If they did mean this, Mr. 
Turner’s flowers were best; if they did not mean this, 
Mr. Turner’s flowers should have been turned out. Honey 
and the combs now make a conspicuous feature at these 
shows, and form a most interesting part of the exhibition. 
Vegetables and fruit, unless they are from cottagers, are so 
inferior to those at Covent-garden Market, or any respect¬ 
able fruit-shop, that we think all the prizes given for things 
of the kind waste. Let us see fruit shown on the trees or 
plants, if at all. After the flowers and plants were cleared 
away, the gardens filled rapidly, and there coidd not have 
been many less than twelve thousand persons present when 
the fireworks were let off. There was a superb tent erected, 
of large dimensions, in honour of the occasion. Jullien led 
the band in the former part of the evening, and Godfrey 
directed the second part. The last show comes on the 
5th September. There are two things that render this 
show useless to dahlia growers ; first, nobody is required to 
show more than three blooms of seedlings under proof, so 
that the most uncertain flower that was ever raised can be 
shown; secondly, there has hitherto been no dependance 
whatever on the judgment, for three blooms can be dressed 
up of very rubbishing flowers to appear better than they can 
ever come again. We cannot find six first-class flowers 
among the one hundred and fifty new ones sent out, or 
advertised to be sent out, last year. One party fortunate 
enough,to obtain a first-class certificate, declined sending the 
Dahlia’out; such was the folly of trusting to three blooms 
that he found the flower totally worthless. The committee of 
the South London Society did the dahlia trade incalculable 
mischief by changing the test of a new flower from six 
blooms to three, although it is well known that the year a 
flower is proved the grower has the whole stock of plants to 
cut from. 
Campanula vidalli is a novel and beautiful plant, 
shrubby, and even hard-wooded in the main stem, 
though the specimen we saw was, to all appearance, an 
old plant. 
It throws up leafless stems, which, in the plant in ques¬ 
tion, were tied up not to the best advantage. The blooms 
are singularly formed, the base being as large as the lip, 
and the flower smaller in the middle. Ten or a dozen flowers 
hang along the upper half of the stem, which, if at liberty, 
would evidently form a graceful bend, something like Die¬ 
lytra spectabilis. The individual blooms are rather over an 
inch long, and half an inch wide at the base and lip. We 
have seen dice boxes very much the form. We consider it 
a great acquisition from its novelty and elegance, and a well- 
grown specimen would be a beautiful object. We should 
think it strikes freely from cuttings. Messrs. Osburn, of 
the Fulham Nursery, have the plant in flower. 
There is, at this time, a splendid specimen of the 
striped (variegated) American Agave, coming into flower 
at the seat of the Rev. Sir Thomas Cullum, Hardwick 
House, Bury St.Edmund’s. It has already risen 17^ 
feet, and is still growing on. E. Y. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
The Caraccas Wtgand (T Vigandia Caracasina ).— 
Botanical Magazine, t. 4575.—This is a tender stove 
shrub, which was first discovered by Humboldt and 
Bonpland, at the Quebrada of Cotecida, at a height of 
2880 feet above the level of the sea, whence it was sent 
to the Royal Garden at Berlin, and afterwards to his 
Grace the late Duke of Northumberland, where it first 
flowered in England. It blooms in February; and a 
figure of it was published in The Botanical Begister, a 
useful work which is now discontinued. The plant 
flowers at uncertain periods, and is a desirable subject 
for a choice collection of stove plants. The flowers are 
of a beautiful lilac colour, and remain a long time in 
succession, from a spike not unlike that of a Borage- 
wort. “ If well grown and formed into a bush, feathered 
to the surface of the ground, this plant must have a very 
beautiful appearance, with its large clusters of delicate 
lilac flowers. But if formed into a sort of stake, with a 
few leaves and flowers at the top, as is (was formerly) too 
frequently the case with stove plants, it will be found to 
possess little claims to attractiveness.” The cultivation 
of stove plants has made a rapid advance since this 
passage was written by Dr. Limlley; one might visit 
many gardens now ere ho could find “ a sort of stake,” 
“long-legged,” or “bare-legged” either, in our plant 
houses. However, these conditions were to be seen 
everywhere among our plants formerly ; and it may not 
be right, now, that we should forget them so soon, if 
only to make us more thankful for a better state of 
things, and for our own share in producing the change. 
The genus Wigandia was named by Kunth in honour of 
John Wigand, a Bishop of Lithuania, a promoter of botany 
and other branches of natural history. It is now included 
in the Natural Order Hydrophyls (Hydrophyllacere), to 
which Order the Hydroleas, of which Wigandia is a close 
ally, have been recently removed, because even sectional 
characters could not be found to distinguish them; there¬ 
fore, with such plants as the Nemophilas, Euiocas , and Pha- 
celia, the old Hydroleas now make up the Order of Hydro¬ 
phyls, and in the Linmean system Wigandia is placed in the 
first order of the fifth class, Pentandria Monogynia. Its 
stem is herbaceous, and hairy all over; leaves, alternate, on 
long stalks, pointed egg-shaped, scolloped, and toothed at 
the edge, and hairy on both sides; flowers, in panicles; 
stalks, short; calyx, five sepaled; corolla, funnel-shaped, 
