June 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
219 
i 
soon bring back the lost reputation of “ onr gera¬ 
niums” in three or four years. Nothing else but the 
pedantry of calling them Pe-lar-go-o-o-niums, and the 
stupidity of removing them into rings and full moons, 
have caused them to be so little thought of for the 
last twelve years. Those best marked in different 
shades of crimson, with black on the back petals, are 
the following:— Magnet, Lord Gough, Alderman, Princess 
Royal (fine), Alonzo, Governor, Commander, with Ajax, 
the lightest of that breed. Whites are extremely scarce, 
and we bad but one of a sort of them here—one plant 
of Pearl, one of Mont Blanc, one of Virgin Queen, one 
of Exactum, a half-white, and one of Village Maid, 
another only half white. In orange-scarlets, there were 
only two kinds, Prince of Orange and Incomparable. 
The following were the most distinct in colours, and we 
could tell them off at a distance, like swans among so 
many geese:— Gulielma, Purpurea, Gertrude, Conspicuum, 
Loveliness, Rosamond, and Ganymede. If the above 
were all taken away, the rest, if they counted a 
thousand, would all look like one kind, to a common 
observer, five yards off. The plants, however, were 
lower, and much better grown and trained than I ever 
saw them before; and there could be no objection to 
what sticks were obliged to be used for the safety of the 
plants, in carriage, if not in showing off the flowers to 
the best advantage. 
Cut Flowers. — I have set my face entirely against 
reporting on cut flowers, unless it is something very 
new or particular indeed, as it is only encouraging 
laziness to take any notice of them. Roses, Azaleas, 
and Rhododendrons, were in the cut flowers, but, of 
course, the plants which produced them were not fit to 
be seen. Last year, there were three or four little sprigs 
of a new plant, at one of the shows, from Mr. Yeitch, but 
I had well nigh forgotten that, until I was applied to 
the other day by our biographer, to add my mite to 
his account of the Yellow Leptosiphon, figured at page 
73 of our present volume. There were some half- 
dozen of pots full of it at this show, and they were the 
best of all the new plants. This annual will make a 
most beautiful bright yellow bed in May, by sowing the 
seeds in the autumn, as all the annuals from California 
ought to be treated. I think I have said already that 
Leptosiphons would flourish on the top of an old rotten 
dung heap, in the corner of a ploughed field, better 
than in my lady’s flower garden, unless the bed was 
filled with one-half rotten cow dung, the other half of 
rotten leaf mould, and with half-an-inch of maiden loam 
on the top to deceive people, and keep the bottom of 
the plants from rotting off. At least, my first bed of 
this new Leptosiphon will be so treated, and the plants 
put into it at the end of February from the seed bed. 
The next newest plant is an Ixora, a fine thing in 
the way of Ixora javanica, but with larger flowers and 
leaves. Mr. Low, the Colonial Secretary at Labuan, 
sent home a very similar Ixora to the Clapton Nursery, 
from Borneo, along with four other kinds of Ixora, 
which are still to “ come out.” There was also a large 
Hieracleum-looking plant, called Gulper —a Persian 
drug, and used in all Indian pickles to give them their 
peculiar flavour, as the ticket on the plant told us. 
Along with them, and all from Mr. Veitch, of the 
Exotic Nursery, in the King’s Road, was a welcome 
addition to our hardy, dwarf, evergreen shrubs — a 
native of Patagonia, called Philesia buxifolia; it with¬ 
stood the last six winters, at Exeter, without any harm; 
it will make a low, dense bush, and looks as if it ought 
to be in the front of a peat-bed or border of very choice 
things, and is increased by cuttings of the young wood; 
the flowers are large, of a deep rose colour, and hang 
down, looking very much like one of the Ghent Alstrb- 
merias half open. This genus was named by Commer- 
son, and a small natural order is founded on it by 
Enlicher— Philesiads—Lapageria being the only other 
genus yet known in the order; but, looking at the 
only two plants known to us—this Philesia buxifolia, and 
Lapageria rosea— it is very difficult to believe that they 
can be clearly allied; the Philesia looking like some hard- j 
leaved Andromeda of the polyfolia section, and Lapa¬ 
geria, like a twining Bomarea. There was a cut branch 
in bloom, in a pot, of the hoary-looking Eucalyptus cocci- 
fera, from Australia. There was also a curious Arum¬ 
like plant, 1 think from Mr. Rollison, of Tooting; the 
loot-stalks of the leaf is nearly a yard long, and streaked 
1 like some venomous snake, with a curious palinated 
leaf on the top, spreading crossways from the-stalk, like 
the horn of an Elk; a marshy plant, from the East, re¬ 
quiring a stove ; the name given is Stauromatum punc- 
tatum; but Scholt, the author of it, changed this name 
to Typhonium. Dictyanthus pavonia was likewise new 
to me; it is a twiner, with the growth of the true Jalap 
plant, and a curious, dull flower like that of a Stapelia, 
in shape, but not fleshy. There were three Jacaranda- 
looking plants not in flower, and a fine-looking Protead, 
called Rhopjala corcoradensis, probably from the Cor- 
corado Mountain, on the west of Rio, where the town 
is supplied with water; but Gardener makes no mention 
of it, unless he mistook it for a Bignoniad, like which it 
looks very much, when not in flower; the young wood 
and young leaves are covered with a purple down, like 
| that on the stag-horn Sumach, and the growth that of 
i Sjrathodea—a very beautiful-looking tree, but not in 
flower. Some day, soon, I shall name a few of the 
finest plants in Brazil, not yet introduced, and some of 
them are on the Corcorado Mountain, which has just 
put me in mind of them. 
Fancy Geraniums. —They were never more beautiful, 
or better placed for effect. Statuishii is the only one 
of the ugly black ones they used to show with them, 
but there was a new one of that class, really a good 
black one at last, called Defiance; it is “black and all 
black,” with a light eye. The section of them, like the 
Hero of Surrey, is now very rich ; these are all black, or 
brown and white, and here is a list of them :— Punch, 
Richard Cobden, Brunette, Advancer (fine), Lady Cooper 
(good), Gaiety, Mignion, Magnum Bonum, Caliban, and 
Gipsy Queen, altogether a rich group, and well-defined 
sorts. Those with crimson and scarlet mixed all round 
the petals, with a white or lilac eye, are yet very scarce— 
Triumphans (Ambrose) being the only good specimen I 
saw; but seedlings are coming round to this high colour, 
Lady Hume Campbell, for instance. The best white is 
Delicatum, with a bright scarlet spot in each of the back 
petals, and Empress, with a little more scarlet. Very 
gay ones— Erubescens, white and scarlet; Modesta, ditto; 
and Nourmahal, ditto. The faintish red ones, like 
Anais, are going out, Rosali and Anais being the only 
two of that strain, while Reine des Francois admits 
Alboni, Princess Alice, and Floribunda, on equal terms. 
Altogether, I wish every one of our readers were there 
to see them for themselves. 
A full collection of Spanish and English Irises, from 
Mr. Salter, of Hammersmith, was a novelty, and no less 
so a large collection of Small Roses, in smaller pots; 
these were budded last summer, or autumn, on the 
Manetti stock, and this was the first start and bloom. 
Paul’s Queen Victoria, the only white hybrid perpetual 
we have, was among these, and very fine it was. Next 
to them were six very good herbaceous Calceolarias, ex¬ 
ceedingly well grown and trained by Mr. Constance, gar¬ 
dener to C. Mills, Esq., Hillingdon, Middlesex; both 
strangers to me, but I name them more pointedly in 
order to remark, that if they and other private amateurs 
were to take up Calceolarias afresh, and not trouble their 
heads about the mathematical form of the flowers, we 
might still expect such fine Calceolarias as have been 
lost during the last fifteen years. In 1837-8, and 1839,1 
