34 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Aprtl 17. 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S MEETING, 
April 3. 
ERIOSTEMON SCABRUM. 
The next best greenhouse plant at this meeting, 
after Acacia Drutnmondi, was Eriostemon scabrum. The 
shape, the close growth, and the profusion of flowers 
on this plant, were never excelled in public by any one 
in my time. It was sent by Mr. Charles Hall, nursery¬ 
man, Park Hill, Brixton, a name I never heard before; 
but if Mr. Hall would but go on according to this 
beginning, time would bring him up to the top of the 
prize-lists. I assert this with the more confidence, be¬ 
cause he is a stranger to me, and from another old 
prophesy of mine, in which I said the same thing about 
the Messrs. Fraser, of Lea Bridge, five years before they 
had beaten Mrs. Lawrence. This plant of Eriostemon 
scabrum might be a yard high above the pot, and thirty 
inches across over the pot; nearly a perfect cone, but 
not so sharp at tlio point as some gardeners make their 
specimens. Any plant which is not brought up with 
one central leading stem should never end at the top 
in a mere point. There is a law, founded in nature and 
sanctioned by practice and experience, which says, that 
all evergreen bushes, shrubs, or trees, ought to be widest 
across the very bottom shoots, and for this reason, that 
unless they are so, flie wider branches over them will 
hide the lower branches from the sun, and shelter them 
from the rain, or from the syringe, and thus cripple 
them, causing failure and decay where the plant ought 
to be best clothed. But all this does not necessarily 
tend to make a peak or sharp point at the very top; far 
from it. Look at a well-trained Laurestinus, or a 
Portugal Laurel, or an Alaternus, with their broad, 
massy tops and widest bottoms, and if you see them as 
I do, you will own that art went hand-in-hand with 
Nature to make perfect natural specimens of them. 
But look at that variegated Holly, or the American 
Arborvitae, by the side of it, or the Irish Yew, a little 
further on—did you ever see such “frights!” All of 
them with bumbelly-Wke heads as broad as they are 
long, when each of them ought to end in a single point 
from a leading centre. And why ? Just because that 
is the way in which Nature designed them to appear to 
please you; but through neglect, or bad taste, they have 
been allowed, or coerced, to assume an unnatural shape 
or aspect. That is, therefore, our “sampler” to teach 
others not to force against Nature when they are prun¬ 
ing and training plants for public exhibition. Follow 
Nature, but do not twist her, and never pull her up by 
the nose to make a peaked point for a pyramid, and 
then go about the country and call it “ a specimen ” 
plant. 
BORONIA TRIPHYLLA. 
The third best grown and flowered greenhouse plant 
was a Boronia triphylla, sent by Mr. Taylor, gardener 
to J. Coster, Esq., Streatham; this, also, was very 
naturally trained. Those beautifully-grown plants, and 
a fine bloomed Azalea indica Smithii, from Mr. McEwen, 
gardener to the Duke of Norfolk, were singled out by 
the Society’s butler and gardener, so to speak, to set off 
the dessert-tables. Butlers and gardeners must accom¬ 
modate each other, or ought to do so, in the matter of 
selecting plants, flowers, and vases, &c.,to hold them on 
the dinner and dessert-tables. This is the fashion among 
the great in the country. A dinner maybe good enough 
for a half-famished party from the Crimea, or even for 
common appetite; but without flowers, or some flower- 
ing plants on the table, it is not fashionable to “ ask” 
great people to dine. To our great comfort, the Society 
are now getting into the same high notions, and they 
pick out the best specimen plants to “furnish” the 
tables on which they place fruits and vegetables; and if 
my reports do no more good than to spread the fashions, 
—good fashions recollect,—everybody ought to road 
them in such times as these. 
From the Messrs. Henderson, Pine-Apple Place, we 
had a collection, or rather a selection, of excellent green¬ 
house plants, for the wits of young gardeners, such as 
Dilwynia pungens, Boronia triphylla, Boronia pinnata, 
both finely done. Acacia squcimata, with globe flowers 
and no leaves, properly so-called, but short, blunt spine- 
like bodies instead. This is a low much-spreading bush, 
well adapted for such specimens as amateurs ought to 
aim at, and a scarce Acacia in the show-room ; for this 
is the first time I saw it in public. A white flowered 
seedling, Pimelia of good aspect; Eriostemon intermedia, 
four-feet high, well-branched, and equally well-bloomed. 
Every little greenhouse, however small, ought to have 
all the Eriostemons, as anybody can grow them, and 
they could soon give a taste for more difficult plants; 
Hovea pungens to wit, which was the next plant, and 
with rich blue flowers; this and the Dilwynia pungens 
are two of the most difficult to do well; Pultenea 
subumbellata, in very good order; this, also, requires 
good training, and much stopping to bring its straggling 
habit into a decent form. 
HIPPEASTERS. 
Messrs. Henderson had a seedling Hippeaster with a 
wrong name; but since Colville and the Loddige’s are 
gone, I do not know a single nurseryman in the three 
kingdoms whom one could trust to name a Hippeaster. 
This was called Aulicum reticulatum, denoting that it 
was either a first or second cross from the two named 
species; but there was not one drop of the blood of either 
of the said species in this flower. It is one of the many 
crosses of Vittata by the pollen of Equestre; and it is 
three-parts white from the mother’s side, with the rich 
green eye, and the bad orange-red of the father, as dis¬ 
tinctly as if this genealogy was written across the petals, 
as, in fact, it is by nature; but who can read her! 
Unfortunately, the strain of reticulata is extremely scarce, 
and reticulata itself lias been lost, I believe, for more 
than twenty years; at least, I failed to procure it all over 
Europe some years since; it was a tender stove bulb, 
with purplish-crimson flowers, and a large white eye; 
no other bulb in the world is of that very stamp; it is 
figured in the Botanical Magazine, vol. xviii. plate 657; 
but the colours are gone, and the drawing gives no idea 
of the beauty. There is a variety of it still in cultiva¬ 
tion, with a white band down the middle of the leaf; 
but it is extraordinarily difficult to bloom, or else it 
must be of great age before it will bloom at all. 
There was another seedling Hippeaster from Mr. 
Snow, gardener to the Earl de Grey ; a most desirable 
kind on two accounts: the first, that it is deliciously sweet 
in a scentless family; the next, is tho habit of the leaves 
coming up half-height simultaneously with the flowers; 
not very usual in this group; besides, the colours are 
lively, a soft shade between scarlet and crimson, the mid¬ 
rib of each petal banded narrowly with white, denoting 
a descent from rutilum, by some variety of Johnsonii. 
Every amaryllis like flower, with a white hand in the 
middle of the petal, is some variety of Johnsonii. The 
oldest of all these crosses and Johnsonii was got between 
Regina as mother and the pollen of Vittatum. The 
name of Mr. Snow’s seedling is Stephenia, which is 
much better than such names as attempt to explain the 
cross in a group which few understand. 
TREE PINK. 
I never saw a “Tree-Pink” before, but of all the trees 
among Cloves, Pinks, and Carnations, this seemed to 
me to be the easiest to grow well, on account of its 
bushy habit; in fact, it is a large shrub rather than a 
