THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 7. 
353 
one hand, or from bastard Latin on the other, to con¬ 
found and puzzle the whole world ? I am appealed to 
every month in the year to give publicity to many things 
that I do not choose to burn my fingers about; but it 
I did not notice this vice in naming plants and seed- < 
lings, I durst not show my face again at an Exhibition, 
but I confess it is very unpleasant to be obliged to find 
fault at all. The only thing I can do is to to show 
neither fear nor favour, and to be candid in my stric¬ 
tures, as far as I know the matter. 
I have just hoard that the Dipladenia splendens has 
seeded in abundance, and the seedlings are up and 
doing well. Here, again, we shall soon have occasion 
for new trivial names, as no doubt some ot the seed- : 
lings will sport, or, if they should not at first, there can j 
be little doubt of some of them turning out good j 
breeders ; then the pollen of crassinoda and atropurpurea 
will give a new race of stove climbers as gay and as 
varied as Tulips. The Ecldtes being as much in rela¬ 
tion with Dipladenia as the Azalea is with Rhododendron, 
or nearly so; the pollen from some of the best ot the 
species ought also to be tried on Dipladenia, and all the 
Dipladenias ought now to be crossed with each other for 
a chance, without waiting for the new seedlings. The 
beautiful Mandevilla suaveolens is only one remove from 
Ecldtes and Dipladenia, and there is not a man alive 
who can say positively that the three will not interbreed. 
If so, what a field for new greenhouse climbers is thus j 
opened for experiments. As soon as the new seedlings , 
of Dipladenia come to be marked, I would advise cross¬ 
breeders to get one, as most of them know that a seed- ! 
ling got under cultivation is worth ten from a wilding 
for experimenting with. 
Dielytra. —Her Majesty “ Queen Mab,” and a gen- ! 
tleman from the West of England, sent me the old j 
Dielytras, or Fumarias eximia and formosa, but I have 
failed to cross either of them with spectahilis, or to get 
seeds from any of the three; but having heard that s/icc- 
tahilis ripened seeds without crossing, my failure need 
not be taken as decisive agaiust the cross. There seem 
to be certain conditions of treatment, soil, and tempera¬ 
ture necessary for seeding many kinds of plants. One 
cultivator only has yet succeeded in seeding the Dipla- 
denia as above stated. One amateur has seeded the 
Sidonia Geranium, after a score had failed to do so 
for years, and a friend of mine, Mr. Turner, Curator of 
the Bury St. Edmond’s Botanic Gardens, wrote in Lou¬ 
don's Gardeners Magazine, some years ago, about one 
who seeded the Jacobcea Lily• (Sprekelia formosissima) 
after all the cross-breeders in Europe had failed in 
getting a single seed from it, or any produce by its 
pollen. What has become of the seedlings mentioned 
by Mr. Turner? for I only write from memory. 
One of our correspondents mentioned lately that 
forced Geraniums seeded with him better than unforced j 
ones, and this is just the very opposite to my experience, ; 
so that we are compelled to the conclusion, that certain j 
conditions of climate, and management of the plants j 
uinder experiments in crossing, influence the said plants | 
beyond our control. We must also allow our total 
ignorance of what these conditions really are. I have 
tried many experiments with bulbs against Dr. Herbert, j 
and by his request, which failed to establish deductions 
drawn from his own trials; and I have heard that his j 
plant-houses were almost always kept much drier than 
we gardeners keep them, and I think that the degree of 
heat, and the quantity of moisture in the air at the 
time, have much influence on the seeding of certain 
plants; and I have seen little plants cramped in very 
small pots, and half-roasted in the front of old- 
fashioned greenhouses, seeding like grass, while plants 
of the same kinds hardly seeded at all under favourable 
circumstances; therefore, the field is still wide open 
for all comers, and no one need keep away from 
cross-breeding with an idea that he is too late in the 
field. 
I only know of one family, the Sword Lilies (Gladioli), 
which may be said to be monopolised by any one, but 
Mr. Cole, of Birmingham, just named in connection 
with Punch and Judy, has the Gladiolus certainly under 
his own thumb, and he will make a fortune out of them. 
He is now selling them by the hundreds, for he told me 
so himself the other day, when he called to tell me of 
his ups and downs since he left me in Suffolk. 
Verbenas. —No one, I believe, has yet tried to cross 
Verbena venosa, or the Aubletia, or any of the Stachytar- 
phetas, with the dwarf bedders, but that all of them will 
breed together I have no doubt. I have myself crossed 
and had a cross seedling from venosa, with a greyish 
flower, and the entire habit of venosa, but I believe it is 
lost now ; the process of crossing them is extremely 
troublesome and difficult of execution, and what 1 
would recommend is this—to plant one or two plants of 
the upright kinds in a bed, or along with a patch of the 
trailing ones in a mixed border, and to let the bees, or 
the wind cross them, and take all chances. The habit 
and hardihood of Verbena venosa would give quite a 
new stimulus to this class, and long, scarlet, spike 
flowers would be a great novelty in beds. “ Sports 
ought now to be looked after as keenly as ever crossing 
was, and means taken to secure the sport at once, 
because, after a while, although the flower, or the leaf 
that has sported, may hold on, the juice or blood inside 
is altering day by day, and, at last, may turn back the 
sport. I saw a sport this week of the Mrs. Elliot Rose, 
with the flowers as much streaked and stained with 
dark crimson blotches as the new Rose I mentioned 
the other day as being named after the late Queen of 
the Belgians (page 218), and recommended buds to be 
instantly taken from it, and put on Manettii, or other 
stocks, with a view to perpetuate the sport if possible. 
The moment a variegated leaf appears on a shoot as a 
sport, that shoot ought to be cut off then and there, and 
all the green leaves on it be discarded, and the part be 
made into a cutting or a graft, or even a bud, if the 
thing has a visible bud—the buds of Geraniums are not 
visible. Two days after the appearance of a sport may 
suffice to charge it with the more natural juices of the 
parent to such a degree as will cause it to return to the 
mother form on the next growth. I can hardly explain 
myself to-day for want of room, but the weather for the 
last nine months has been so much out of level that I 
expect more “ sports ” among flowers and vegetables 
this summer than have been noticed these last ten 
years. Very many plants never stopped growing all 
last winter, till the weather broke out cold and dreary 
last March—then such a severe check was given to an 
unnatural accumulation of unripened sap, that the 
whole gathering of sap since last October, is now 
(27th June), and for some weeks’ past, on the fer¬ 
ment, with a soft, sultry, summer sky, and, probably, 
will cause all the freaks and fancies of which nature, 
among flowers, is capable of ever producing again 
in our days—therefore, let me earnestly entreat of all 
who wish well to our gardens and orchards, to be on 
the look out for sports in time, and to lose no time in 
securing one when they see it; and next time he or 
they write to The Cottage Gardener, send “ a full 
and particular account” of the thing, that we may all 
know it; and some of the most difficult crosses may be 
got easily under a deranged condition of the sap. Just 
try. D. Beaton. 
PLANTS FOR BASKETS IN A COOL 
GREENHOUSE. 
“ Will you furnish me with the names of a few plants, 
suitable for growing in fancy wire baskets suspended 
