THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 10,1857. 
892 
! tho true wortli of Reeves shall never be made known till 
; the thoughts of the children of men aro revealed. In 
one of the drawings a branch issues forth between every 
j “ pip ” of the Pine Apple ; and the pip is, or represents 
i the bud at the axil of the branch, the branch itself 
being represented in all regular Pines by a dry scale 
j rising from between the “ pips,” which gives this fruit 
its “ragged and jagged” appearance, as the lecturer 
characterised the fruit. The other drawings were still 
more curious; but a large section of a Pine Apple in 
chalk on a black board enabled the lecturer to make 
the thing as evident as daylight to those of us who had 
eyes to see; and those who had not, no doubt, wished 
him at Penang or somewhere else, that they might get 
to see the flowers, and not violate their other engage¬ 
ments for that afternoon by waiting to “ hear the end 
of it.” 
On entering the room I first met a collection of 
Cyclamens , chiefly kinds of Cyclamen Persicum, Conm, 
and Atkinsii, from the Wellington Road Nursery. 
They were in small nursery pots, as they ought to be; 
and there was a full-grown specimen of Cyclamen 
Persicum from Mr. Ingram, gardener to J. J. Blandy, 
Esq., with 150 flowers open upon it, and as many 
coming or gone, all from one “bulb;” so that the 
lecturer might well point with pride to the genus Cycla¬ 
men as the most attractive for early spring flowers of 
“ unsurpassing neatness.” 
Mr. Edmunds, gardener to his Grace the Duke of 
Devonshire at Chiswick House, sent six pots, each of 
which was eighteen inches across the mouth, of the 
Double White Chinese Primrose , and the leaves hung 
over the sides, so that the diameter of each plant was 
above twenty inches, and if the six came out of one 
mould they could not match better. The style of growth 
and the proportions of flower and leaf were what you 
might call the perfection of perfect; and, if you believe 
me, when I came to Surbiton six years since there was 
hardly a gardener round Loudon who knew more of 
these “ Primroses ” than they now do about growing 
Balsams: what they called Balsams at the Crystal 
Palace last autumn would be most disgraceful for the 
Isle of Man to turn out. Six years hence, if honest 
men will but keep rattling up the truth to them, as I 
told about the Ipswich way of growing these Primulas 
a few years since, you have only to put in a9 much 
yeast as will “work” the London blood comfortably, 
and you may take my word for the strength of the 
double X. 
The Messrs. Jackson, of Kingston, were equally suc¬ 
cessful with two match pots of white and red Primulas ; 
but there was such a demand for -cut flowers this winter, 
that all their very large plants were stripped long since, 
and twenty-four inches was the diameter of their plants, 
instead of the thirty-four inches which I measured last 
autumn for my report of their collection. If these were 
not worth all the barm or yeast I spent in getting up 
the blood I never “ bru’d a peck o’ maut.” 
A large plant of a new Oncidium, from Messrs. Jackson, 
was much praised for its novelty from such a quarter— 
1 Cbiriqui, a port or province of Venezuela, beyond 
| Caraccas, in South America. It is of the very long 
| flower-stemmed kind, and with numerous yellow and 
brown flowers. A pure white-lipped kind of Lycaste 
Skinneri, which was most beautiful two months ago, 
but now too much faded to have given to it the rank and 
stamp it most certainly will obtain when it becomes 
j better known. It is the best of sixteen or eighteen 
variations of this Lycaste which I have noted. Mr. Ed¬ 
munds sent a fine tall Vanda tricolor with his Primulas; 
and there was a Cypripedium villosum from Mr. Law¬ 
rence, gardener to the Bishop of Winchester. 
The lion of the day was a new Melastomad, from the 
Wellington Road N ursery, called Monochcelum ensiferum, 
a lovely dwarf, bushy plant, with vivid, rich, rose blossoms 
in the peculiar colour of a Chironia. This will make a 
specimen plant for the shows. Ensiform is certainly a 
bad name, as nothing ensiform (sword-shaped) is seen 
about it; but the genus is near to Osbeclcia, and that 
section is most difficult to determine botanically from 
dried specimens; so much so, indeed, that the elder 
De Candolle named six new genera out of six kinds of 
this Monochcetum, and Monochcetum itself is only a kind 
or one species of Artlirostemma, the original name of 
the family by Pavon. 
The next lion was cut flowers of a grand new hot¬ 
house climber from Mr. Veitch, a Thunbergia, with 
leaves like T. coccinea, and large light blue flowers like 
a Gloxinia, but more wavy in the outline. We were 
told in the lecture that it was near to Thunbergia grandi- 
flora , and I rather think the second name was guessed 
at, but I did not catch it. This is another noble climber, 
of easy cultivation, judging from the affinity with 
coccinea. 
The Messrs. Henderson, of the Wellington Road 
Nursery, also exhibited two continental crosses of 
Gesneras, oue in the way of zebrina, called cinnabarina, 1 
with brilliant scarlet or crimson flowers and blotched 
leaves, very different from those of zebrina, but in that 
way; and the second, which is called densiflora, looks 
as if it were between Gesnera mollis and another of that 
race, but the growth and foliage are not so free as in 
mollis. 
Mr. Veitch exhibited, and, I believe, for the first time, 
a most beautiful Camellia, called Saccoi Nova, which is 
an Italian seedling, named after the raiser. M. Makay, 
of Liege, “ brought out” this fine Camellia in 1847 or 
1848, and I recollect buying one from him at the time 
on the recommendation of Mr. Gruneberg, now of the 
firm of Weeks and Co., who was then my chief hand, 
and who had seen it, or a drawing of it, at Liege; but 
next year the collection was dispersed by Mr. Stevens, 
and I never saw the flower till I met with it at this 
Meeting. It is a middle-sized flower, perfectly imbri¬ 
cated, and high in the centre, and a better rose colour 
than elegans. It is a gem of the first water. There j 
were three plants of it in full bloom. Along with them 
was a plant of the Camellia, Countess of Orkney, & large, 
flat, white flower, with carnation stripes in the petals; 
and another plant of the same Countess was exhibited 
by Mr. Ingram, gardener to J. J. Blandy, Esq. 
N. H. Nugent, Esq., showed another Camellia, a 
crimson and variegated kind, which took the form of 
hexangularis, or star-shaped. We were here told that the 
Chinese have a secret by which they can grow Camellias 
so as to form such flowers at pleasure; and, although 
their drawings are not to be depended on for correctness, 
the fact of such a secret is put beyond doubt by Mr. 
Reeves’ drawings aforesaid. In addition, I may add, 
that in 1885 I had a Lady Hume Camellia, six or seven 
feet high, rather starved for pot room, and was never in 
heat more than in a greenhouse, and that year it produced 
above a dozen perfect hexaugular flowers. 
There was a good specimen plant of Rhododendron 
jasminiflorum, with seven or eight trusses of bloom, 
from Mr. Veitch. 
Messrs. Cutbush and Son, of Higbgate, sent another 
collection of beautiful Hyacinths from their nursery, 
and, beginning with the highest colour, here are their 
names :— Robert Steiger, single crimson scarlet; Circe, a 
fine shaded scarlet, a true lady’s flower; Waterloo, a 
double red, and always good; Mary Stuart, a large 
single white; Tour d Auvergne, double white; Grandeur 
d Merveille, blush white; Norma, deeper blush white, 
fine; Baron Von Tuhl, again the best dark blue; Blocks- 
berg, double greyish blue ; Porcelaine Sceptre, violet or 
porcelain blue; and Grand Lilas, a grand lilac, all to 
be bought for next year as downright good sorts. 
