THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
had in good bloom early in April; and 'we have no 
doubt all those that we so much admired last Satur¬ 
day, might be similarly treated for early bloom with 
equal advantage. 
There is another class of pelargoniums with small 
flowers, called French, or fancy sorts, to distinguish 
them from those large ones called florists’ flowers : of 
these there have been two or three collections exhi¬ 
bited at all the metropolitan flower shows for the last 
three or four seasons, and most beautiful things they 
are, and no wonder that they have become rapidly 
great favourites with the ladies. There was only one 
collection of this class exhibited on this occasion, and 
we never saw finer plants of them at this early period, 
hut we regret our want of space to do full justice to 
them. Ibrahim Pacha is, in our opinion, the best of 
this class. It is chiefly scarlet with white; and the 
edges of the flower leaves are much waved and deli¬ 
cately white : altogether this is the prettiest pelar¬ 
gonium we have seen of the small class, and the 
nearest to it is one called Anais, the only difference 
being that Anais has more white in it than his High¬ 
ness the Pacha. We recollect a seedling being exhi¬ 
bited either last year, or the year before, very much 
in the way of these two, and named Jenny Lind, with 
which we were highly pleased; but we must put our 
readers on their guard not to buy one under this 
name, unless they ask for Ambrose's Jenny Lind, that 
being the florist’s name who exhibited it; and we 
have seen two other kinds which went by the same 
favourite name, but certainly not worthy of it. Queen 
Victoria, and Lady Rivers, are also two of these fancy 
ones, and as near to each other in appearance as two 
eggs : on this occasion we should only have noticed 
Queen Victoria, had it not been that Lady Rivers in 
the collection exhibited by Mr. Gains, of Battersea, 
was much lighter than we ever saw her Ladyship 
before, and very distinct from Queen Victoria. We 
are inclined to believe that Lady Rivers was much 
forced for this occasion; but we may be in error, 
for we are regularly in the habit of forcing Queen 
Victoria into flower by the first of April, without 
in the least affecting its natural midsummer hue; 
and we have not met with a pelargonium that is less 
affected by great heat; therefore, having seen Lady 
Rivers so much altered in appearance this time, we 
are ourselves curious to ascertain what has been the 
cause of it. Associated with these fine fancy ones 
were Madame Meillez, an immense bloomer, but alto¬ 
gether of a very dark character, making a good con¬ 
trast with the pure white-ground colour of Queen 
Victoria and Lady Rivers, and the clouded scarlet of 
Anais and Ibrahim Pacha. Any of our readers who 
may have known an old kind of pelargonium, which 
was fashionable about twenty years ago, and called 
Yetmenianum , will have no difficulty in understanding 
the dark spots and pencilling of Madame Meillez, and 
also a few more of the same breed which appear occa¬ 
sionally at these great exhibitions; such as, for in¬ 
stance— La Belle de VAfrica, Mulatto, Orpheus, Sta- 
tushi, fyc. These dark ones are well marked and 
distinct; but we cannot say that we much admired 
them, and we do not expect to see them soon much 
improved, as we have noticed a great variety of seed¬ 
lings of them having been exhibited once or twice, 
and then disappear altogether. Queen Victoria and 
Lady Rivers appear to be very difficult to seed, or to 
be bad breeders, as we do not recollect to have seen 
any good seedlings of their stamp ; but we know that 
Anais and Ibrahim Pacha will seed as freely as chick- 
weed, but it requires a good knowledge of crossing to 
get any improved varieties from them. Every exhi¬ 
bition round London last year brought out seedlings 
of various merits from these two; not one of which 
seedlings were so good as Anais or the Pacha. Even 
last Saturday we saw three seedlings of this very breed, 
but we must suspend our judgment on them till we see 
them under more favourable circumstances. 
Besides these, and many more, that we cannot now 
particularly enumerate, we noticed an old pelargonium 
called flexuosum, one of the earliest crosses that was 
obtained by Sweet, from fulgidum, a scarlet-coloured 
wild species from Africa, and the best to get very 
high-coloured ones from; but some how or other florists 
have not followed out this scarlet class as they should 
have done, Moore's Victory being the last stage to 
which they were brought, if our memory serves us 
right. There were several seedlings of the large 
florists’ pelargonium exhibited for the first time on 
this occasion ; and, as we had just settled, in our own 
mind, about which were the best of these seedlings, 
up comes the best judge of them in England, Mr. 
Beck, of Isleworth; but having never had the good 
fortune of an introduction to this gentleman, we could 
not force ourself on his notice, but merely asked him, 
as we might of any other gentleman, which was the 
best of the new seedlings. ^Although he was standing 
in a pool of water, the question made his eyes sparkle, 
and we could well appreciate the glance of his keen 
eye. “ The answer will depend, Sir, whether you 
prefer form to colour ”—As for colour, there could be 
no doubt, or two opinions, Prince of Orange being, 
in our eye, the finest orange-scarlet we had hitherto 
seen, with a beautiful dark blotch in the back of the 
flower. We did not grudge a pair of wet feet for hav¬ 
ing had an opportunity of seeing so beautiful a seed¬ 
ling, but we cannot say how it will pass the ordeal of 
a thorough florist, for we thought it sufficient intrusion 
* to ask Mr. Beck to point out the best shaped one, 
which he readily did, and pointed to one called Chris- 
tabel, a fine-shaped flower; but whether or not Mr. 
Beck considered it a first-rate shape we cannot say, 
he only told us it was the best shaped of all the seed¬ 
lings there. We noted two more as promising— Non¬ 
such and Satisfaction —but considering the earliness of 
the season, and that these pelargonium seedlings are 
not to be much depended on till after the second sea¬ 
son, we must suspend our judgment to another oppor¬ 
tunity, with this one remark, that should the Prince 
of Orange turn as wany on the edges as any of the 
small fancy breed, unless he changes his colour, we 
predict a favourable reception of him by the public. 
Specimens of New Plants in Flower. —Messrs. 
Veitch obtained the large silver medal for a new 
Calceolaria, of shrubby habit, with a yellow gaping 
flower, something like the old C. bicolor. Mr. E. Hen¬ 
derson, of the Wellington Nursery, St. John’s Wood, 
was awarded a silver Knightian medal for Boronia 
tetrandra, with leaves like B. pinnata, but shorter, 
and lilac-coloured flowers numerously produced from 
the axils of the leaflets,—a plant that will suit ex¬ 
hibitors, as it has a neat good habit. Messrs. Rollison 
obtained a silver Banksian for a new Hoya from Java, 
with thick, large, handsome leaves, and rather small 
chocolate-coloured flower. A certificate of merit was 
given to the same for Talauma mutabilis. 
Hardy New Plants. —We saw'a beautiful speci¬ 
men of the Weigela rosea, recently from China, and 
looking, at a little distance, not unlike some of our 
crab apples in bloom. It is perfectly hardy, and of 
the easiest culture. We were very much struck by 
another new plant from China, called Indigofera de - 
