I 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
September 22. 
478 
information. The society is also going to adcl an April 
show to the forthcoming schedule ; and I will venture 
to predict, that with the energetic council which now 
rules the destinies of the exhibition, next year will 
prove one of considerable advance. Our old friend, 
j Mr. Campbell, is curator here; a man of lengthened 
experience, and highly esteemed. I knew him thirty- 
four years ago ; he was then gardener to the Compte de 
Vandes, at Bayswater; and as for myself, I was passing 
, a year at Jenkins’ nursery, in the New Road. Campbell 
I is, thus, a man of great experience, and his services are, 
it appears, well appreciated by the council, as well they 
may be, for he has done much for these gardens, 
especially considering the enormous difficulties he 
i laboured under for years. It is not many years since 
this society passed through a very severe ordeal; it was 
well nigh dissolution. A few choice spirits, however, 
real enthusiasts, prominent amongst whom I may 
name Mr. Potter, stepped forward, and by the prompt 
adoption of a judicious, guarded, and energetic course 
of procedure, rallied its constitution ; and it speedily 
became in a convalescent state; and may be quoted 
now as carrying all the marks of a sound constitution. 
Amongst other choice things exhibited at the last 
show, I may name a beautiful plant of the shy-llowering 
Rencinthera coccinca. This was contributed by Mr. 
i Yates, the great Manchester fruiterer, of St. Anne’s 
Square. This was an extraordinary plant of its kind, 
and only about eighteen inches high, with a splendid 
raceme of its singularly-coloured and highly Chinese- 
looking flowers. This, very worthily, took the best prize. 
Having paid a visit to the extensive gardens of Mr. 
Yates, at Sale Moor, and examined his stock and mode 
of conducting business, which is somewhat peculiar, 
and possessed of many features, I may, in a future 
paper, give a sketch of it to my readers, who, I feel 
persuaded, will feel much interest in its perusal. 
R. Errington. 
BULBS. 
{Continued from page 442.) 
IXIOLIRION. 
Ixiolirion montanum. —Thisisamost beautiful hardy 
[ bulb from Syria, but being yet so scarce in Europe, it 
deserves the treatment and care of the half-hardy race. 
It goes to rest in winter, rises in the spring, and flowers 
with us in May, under the same treatment as the Squills ; 
that is, in any light, rich border. The bulb is not much 
larger than that of a strong Dutch-grown Crocus; the 
stalk is from a foot to eighteen inches high, bearing long 
narrow leaves and bracts; the flower-stalk, or peduncle, 
rises from these bracts near the top, and some of them 
are terminal from a cluster of bracts, and they generally 
come in twos: the colour is a brilliant blue. Altogether, 
it is a fine thing for the borders in May. Col. Chesney 
met with it in great abundance in Palestine, and other 
places in the east, flowering in April, and his account of 
it led to the supposition, in this country, that it must 
have been the “ Lily of the Eield” referred to in the 
Sermon on the Mount. The white Lily {L. candulum) 
could not be the one alluded to, as was long believed, 
because none of the multitude could know that plant, it 
not being a native of any part of Syria. The “ Lily of 
the Eield ” is now, by common consent, believed to be 
the scarlet Chalcedonian Lily, which grows in abundance 
about Galilee, and all a,round those parts. Our Ixiolirion 
montanum was sent to Dr. Herbert, from Damascus or 
Aleppo, by Mr. Cartwright, and flowered with him in 
May 1841 or IS 15, l forget which, but he told me, with as 
much pleasure as a schoolboy would, that he left it in 
bloom at home, when he came up to the May show at 
j Chiswick, where he sometimes assisted the judges; it 
| also seeded with him ; but I have not beard of it since, 
and I much doubt whether we have it now or not. 
Ixiolirion tartaricum. —This is rather smaller in all j 
the parts than montanum, and there are slight differences j 
of botanical separation between the two; yet all that 
may have been owing to the difference of soil and situa- ) 
tion where this was found on the Altai range. 
Ixiolirion soythicum is another of them, but a much \ 
smaller plant than the other two. They were all referred 
to Amaryllis by those botanists who first discovered 
them; but Dr. Eischer, of St. Petersburg!], divided them 
from that group and named the genus. The three are 
probably in the Russian botanic collections; they are I 
well worth inquiring after. Some of our consuls in the 
east might fish them out of the troubled waters after 
political storms subside. What a nice group these 
Ixiolirions would make in a border, with such blue 
flowers as Camassia esculenta, from North America; the 
Cummingias, from Chili; the Dianellas, from New Holland, 
and the Squills, of our own land. 
LACHENALIA. 
Yery few of them are now grown, or worth growing. 
They do not pay for their keep, being so touchy and 
liable to rot off; but as seme of them are sent home 
occasionally in collections from the Cape, and as they 
require much about the same pot-treatment as Ixias, I 
thought it as well to name a few of them among the 
Txia tribe, and I would further add here, that the more 
bulbs of them one can cram into a pot the safer they 
are; and that the rare kinds should be surrounded with 
the best silver sand, and not be deep planted. 
LEUCOCORYNE. 
This genus was separated from Brodiaa, by Dr. 
Lindley, chiefly on account of three of the stamens 
being barren. Two of them, odorata and alliacea, have 
white flowers, about the size of Crocus flowers, and 
Ixioides is a light blue flower, as pretty as any one could 
wish for. They are natives of the south of Chili, and 
all but hardy, and also all but impracticable to keep any 
length of time under ordinary cultivation. There are 
some flowers from Texas which seem on a par with 
them, the Cobcea and Pentstemon, for instance. Extreme 
cold at the roots when they are growing, very warm 
overhead at the same time, and a scorching heat both 
for top and bottom when at rest, are the conditions 
under which they flourish in a state of nature. Mr. 
YV. Rae, the collector sent out by the Horticultural 
Society, found odorata in bloom high up in the south 
of Chili, where the snow had melted only a few days 
before. I have seen the Cloudberry myself in flower 
by the thousands, with a collar of snow about the 
flower-stalks, in May, and the sun so hot that the top of 
the snow felt quite warm; there was a rush of water 
from the snow at the time, and for the next month, 
which made the ground next thing to a swamp, and as 
cold as ice. Yet those flowers will not stand more frost 
overhead than Strawberries, if so much. 
No gardener has ever yet been able to cultivate the 
Cloudberry as a fruit plant. The fruit is about the same 
size, shape, and colour as the Roseberry Strawberry. 
Eew gardeners can manage Pentstemon and Cobcea; 
and, 1 believe, fewer still the Leucocorynes, and bulbs 
of such habits. I have grown Ixioides myself as well as 
it ever was or will be, by placing the bare bulbs on a 
slate shelf, covered with an inch of sand all over, and 
from end to end, the sand being constantly wet all the 
summer from watering the pots of other plants which 
stood on the stage. 
I think I have mentioned already having flowered 
Coburgias, and other bulbs, that are very shy to bloom, 
on this shelf. 
