894 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 25. 
tion upon shows, and many take no other; for our own 
part, had we not been travelling nearly two hundred 
miles from London, with, a full determination to be up 
on the 17th, we should not have seen the advertisement 
part of the Times. The thing, then, stands thus (we 
shall not venture to describe the disappointment of 
hundreds, who used to come to town, and pay their 
shillings to see the new flowers): From October to 
August the meeting is advertised for the 11th. In 
September it was partially announced for the 17th, 
but it was held without any timely notice on the 1 1th. 
Thus we, who never missed for many years this annual 
gathering, first lay ourselves out for the 11th, and 
Shacklewell the 12th. We see little public notice of 
either in the papers, but none of the principal. Vague 
conversations about changes unsettle many, because 
there was no official notice in the papers to set them 
right. Then the 17th is printed as the day in the 
monthly works, and when everybody who calculates 
upon the 17tli makes his arrangements, he hears and 
sees nothing to the contrary till too late, when he finds 
it is all over. This is the way floriculture is damaged. 
Unless there be a good wind-up Dahlia Show in or near 
the Metropolis, and that well advertised, the dealers will 
find a difference in the demand round London. There 
has not been anything like such a gathering this year 
as there ought to have been, and would have been, and 
the whole thing has been spoiled to save a few shillings 
in advertising. E. Y 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
Various-!,EAF r.r.TED Labichea (Lahichea diversifolia). 
— Paxton's Flower Garden , ii. 75.—This is a genus of 
Leguminous Plants ( Fabacece ) which, in affinity, comes 
nearest to the Cassias. They are low bushes, natives of 
the Swan River colony and places adjacent, and are 
interesting greenhouse plants in this country, having 
gay yellow flowers. Two more species of the genus 
have been already introduced, bipunctata and lanceolata. 
The present subject, as far as can be said from a limited 
experience, promises to uphold the character which the 
other two have established for the genus, which was first 
named by Grandichaud, a French botanist and voyager, 
in honour of M. Labiche, his countryman, an officer 
who accompanied Freycinet in his voyage round the 
world in the French ship Uranie, and who died on their 
passage to the Moluccas. The species of this genus are 
diandrous plants, having but two stamens and one style; 
that is, in the system of Linnaeus, Diandria-Monoyynia. 
This, like many others of the Australian leguminous 
plants, is very apt to run away into long straggling 
shoots when young, j and unless this disposition is 
checked at first by a timely pruning, or cutting off 
the points at certain intervals, the specimens are not 
tolerated in these days of compact and close-growing 
plants. 
Labiclica diversifolia was first seen by Mr. Preiss among 
the quartz rocks on the west side of New Holland, and was 
first bloomed, we believe, in this country by Mr. Glendinning, 
at his Turnham-green Nursery. It bloomed in April. The 
leaves are unequally hand-shaped, the leaflets being narrow, 
spear-head-shaped and spine-pointed, smooth, thick-edged, 
and the central leaflet much the largest. Flowers, yellow, 
with the base of the vexillum or flag-petal stained with 
scarlet, in small bunches or racemes; calyx and corolla 
each four-parted; one anther much longer than the other. 
Slender Deutzia (Deutzia gracilis). — Gardeners' 
Magazine of Botany, iii. 225.—This is an extremely 
graceful, new hardy shrub, and no doubt it will become 
a favourite pot-plant with those who enter the lists of 
competition for the prizes offered by the great London 
societies. We risk our reputation in placing it next in 
importance to the Indigofera decora, another hardy, or 
nearly hardy, plant, with which Mr. Iveson, the skilful 
gardener at Sion House, surprised the gardening world 
three years ago, and at each of the May exhibitions 
since, and without aspiring to the spirit of prophecy, 
we predict that the same intelligent gardener will 
gather a good weighty medal for a Deutzia gracilis next 
May, at one or other of our metropolitan gatherings. 
The Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter, introduced it last spring 
on the London stages for the first time, when every one 
who saw it is said to have admired it much. 
