THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 12, 1857. 
Keens and Alice Maude, with Sir Harry between, all 
fine. Alice and the British Queen were splendid m 
other dishes also, and of Keens there was no end. A 
dish of a new Strawberry called Adair was too ripe and 
injured in the carriage, and the Judges would not decide 
on its merits under these disadvantages. 
Fruit of the Loquat was sent from Sion House, and 
it was said to be “ equal to a bad Apricot. 
Mr. Nicol, gardener to General Studd, Exeter, sent a 
collection of beautiful Melons, netted and plain, ribbed 
and no ribs. A small one called Nicol $ Green-flesh 
was particularly nice-looking; and there was a scarlet- 
j flesh Melon, called Prince Albert , from Mr. Lamb, gar- 
I dener to J. Barrington, Esq., F.H.S. 
There was a dish of Dioscorea, the China Yam, and 
ten minutes we were told was the right time to boil 
them. Boiling them like Potatoes only turns their 
i starch to so much paste. 
Mr. Clark, gardener to Lord Darnley, sent a very fine 
: collection of vegetables; also Mr. Snow, at Earl de Grey s. 
His Nonpareil Cabbage is most beautiful and very early ; 
and Snow's Matchless Green Cos Lettuce , “ the best- 
flavoured Lettuce grown,” could only be surpassed by 
Mr. Solomons, of Covent Garden. His yellow Seci-hale 
was new to me. When I was man cook we had a 
horror of yellow Savoys and all yellow vegetables. 
Mr. Frost, gardener at Preston Hall, sent a brace of 
the finest Cucumbers I ever saw out of Ipswich, or rather, 
out of that corner of Suffolk, about two feet long, and 
the flowers almost fresh on their noses. The kind was 
raised in 1852 at Dropmore, and the plant was in bear- 
! ing since last July, according to a memorandum sent 
along with it. 
i Mrs. Johnson, of Covent Garden, to whom I tell the 
people to go for wedding nosegays, exhibited here for 
the first time. 
Mr. Rucker, the great Orchid grower, sent three new 
kinds of very great merit—a Tricopilia in the way of 
coccinea, but half as large again and four times more 
highly coloured ; a Chysis with pale rosy flowers, called 
Limningi, not quite so large as those of bractescens ; but 
the lecturer, who seems to go to all the balls, declared that 
the flowers of this genus will last fresh a whole week, 
although worn in the hair every night. This accounts 
for his notions of Isabella Grey, the young American 
beauty at the Messrs. Low, of Clapton, and a fine Burling- 
toniafragrans. Messrs.Veitch, Glendinning, Henderson, 
of Pino Apple Place, and Cutbush, of Barnet, sent large 
collections of most beautifully-grown plants; Mr. For¬ 
syth, gardener to Baron Rothschild, sent another large 
collection of stove and greenhouse plants; and Mr. Ellis, 
gardener to Dr. Bunce, Woodford, Essex, sent a col¬ 
lection of early Pelargoniums, and another of Lycopods 
and Ferns, all in first-rate style. The doctor is a new 
exhibitor, and he has a good stove, a good greenhouse, 
and a good gardener to begin with at least. 
There were eighteen kinds of Orchids in Mr. Veitch’s 
collection. The largest was Denclrobium speciosum in fine 
bloom; the most curious was Uropedium Lindenia, “ a 
lady’s slipper turned inside out,” with three long strap¬ 
like fastenings instead of sepals and the pouch, the 
queerest thing in all the Orchids; and as to the finest, 
they were all in most beautiful order and bloom. He 
i also had the best-habited new Rhododendron we have 
had since Javanicum, a stiff, sturdy, stocky, close-jointed 
plant, with smooth, thick leaves, and as thick as they 
are long, and silvery beneath. The flowers come in 
thiees; they are as large as, and of a clearer white 
than, those of formosum, and they are frilled on the edges 
like Azalea crispijiora, or rather more so. It is from 
Moulmein, a range in the Malay peninsula, next to 
Bii inah, and therefore, like jusminiflorum and Javanicum, 
it must have a greenhouse. .1 he three were there in 
gicat beauty, and there was an improved Javanicum ; 
but I heard say that the very best kinds of Rhodo¬ 
dendron Javanicum are in the hands of the Messrs. 
Fraser, of Lee Bridge Nursery. A large standard of 
R. Dalhousianum, with thirty or forty blossoms, in the 
same collection, was anything but worth showing—a 
gawky, ill-fared-looking plant, and the flowers decidedly 
ugly in their greenish, sickly-looking tints. Nicotiana 
fragrans, from the same firm, is very like a bedding 
one which we had last year in the Experimental Garden, 
and flowered till the frost came. It was given us under 
the name of Sweet Petunia , and it was very sweet in 
the evening, a pure white limb, and a long tube, and 
the size of the Virginian Tobacco flower will represent it. 
Messrs Veitch Had also a new slender leaf-and-scape 
bulb from California, with small, drooping, dark crimsop 
flowers, having green tips, and several others. Also two 
boxes of cut flowers of hybrid Rhododendrons of their 
own raising; and there were others from Sion House 
which were much praised for their beauty, hardiness, 
and the skill with which they were obtained between 
Ponticums and arboreums by Mr. Carton, who emigrated 
to Australia. 
In the collection from Pine Apple Place were a fine 
Elceocarpus denticulatus, six or seven feet high; five 
kinds of yellow Rhododendrons, Boronias, Pultenseas, 
Aphelexis, and a fine Ilibbertia Reiclii, with a Heath-like 
growth, covered with yellow blossoms—all in fine style. 
That from Mr. Cutbush, of Barnet, contained well- 
grown and bloomed Hypocctlymma robustum, Aphelexis, 
Siatice Holdfordi, Boronias, Heaths, a large Azalea; 
Dillwynia speciosa, the “Burning Bush;” and the old 
Polygala Renteria, now called Muraltia Heisteria. 
Mr. Forsyth’s collection embraced Pimelea spectabilis, 
Azaleas, Heaths, Aphelexis, variegated Pandanus, Cala- 
dium bicolor, Crotons, Dracaenas, and others, all in the 
exhibition style. 
Mr. Glendinning sent a fine specimen of the Rice 
Paper plant of China, a Draccena called lutea, and 
some others. 
The gardener of the Society furnished a large col¬ 
lection of similar plants and three well-bloomed Achi- 
menes. 
Mr. Alnut sent a Camellia twelve or fifteen feet high, 
the old Sasanque rosea, in full bloom. 
Mr. Clark, of Brixton, sent two fine, light, seedling 
Azaleas, and a fine Hippeaster of the Johnsonii section, 
called Amaryllis magnijica. It has a four-flowered 
scape. 
There was a fine new white bedding and forcing 
Geranium, from A. and J. Beard, of Hendon, very much 
like Pearl in the flowers, with a stiffer habit. This will 
be a most welcome bedder to bloom as long as Tom 
Thumb, and to force as well as Alba multijiora, and 
pray memorandum the name, which is Blanchefeur, and 
will “ come out” next October. 
Another most welcome bedder is a variegated-leaved 
Dahlia, from the Messrs. Henderson, of the Wellington 
Road Nursery. 
Amphicoma Emodi was shown by Col. Fairhead. It 
was described from the Pine Apple Place Nursery last 
week. The rarest in the collection from our own garden 
was Rhododendron formosum, with large white flowers, 
and a standard Ceanothus papillosus a fine large white 
Azalea, and Acacia grandis. A splendid bunch of cut 
flowers of Cantua dependens, the richest of all our 
tubular flowers, from Mr. Luscombe, F.H.S./from Devon¬ 
shire, where it blooms out of doors with little protec¬ 
tion. Another bunch of cut flowers of Smith’s Fellow 
Loisette Rose, from Mr. Snow, was held up to us as a 
triumph ot skill. If Mr. Snow was as young as when 
I first knew him he ought to have Isabella Grey in a 
bed with his ochroleucus and other yellow Roses, for 
which he takes the shine out of most of them. 
But lot us talk about shining after seeing three dozen 
