r 'T , 
38 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 20, 1858. 
Gauntlet Geraniums sliow liim up at the head of the 
forcing department. Gauntlet is, undoubtedly, the 
very best of all the forcing Geraniums, and is the very 
worst plant among all the forcing plants to “do” 
well. Ten thousand Gauntlets are forced every winter 
and spring; but, until the last few years, we could 
never see a plant of it on sale. They were all so 
gawky and so straggling, that no one would buy them, 
but would give more money for the cut flowers than 
the plants were worth; but anything which will pay 
in London is sure and certain to succeed at last, and 
so Gauntlet may be had now as closely grown, and as 
“ stubby,” and short-jointed as Alba fnultijlora, or 
any of the race, as any one might see at this Bazaar. 
Fairy Roses, fancy Pelargoniums, Calceolarias, Mi- 
muluses, Heaths, variegated and plain-leaved scarlet 
Geraniums, Azaleas, Yerbenas, Acacia armata , purple 
Diosma, Cactuses, double Tulips, Hyacinths, all in, or 
coming into bloom, and selling from a shilling to half- 
a-crown the plants, were the bulk of Mr. Smith’s 
stall at the Bazaar. 
Opposite to Mr. Smith’s stall, Mr. Woodroof, the 
f reat grower of bedding plants, for the trade, round 
iondon, had an equal extent. His plants, also, were 
remarkably well grown, and well flowered, but differed 
very little in kinds from the names above. There 
were six thousand and a half of visitors, and five 
thousand of them were probably from London, and 
out of that number, say that the one half had gar¬ 
dens and pot plants of their own. Well, the style of 
growing forced plants for “ spring flowers,” as were 
shown in these two collections, was a better sampler 
for the greater number of the visitors, than that of 
the great many exhibition plants anywhere. 
Mr. Standish had his stall purposely to take orders. 
He had a few large specimens of Skimmia Japonica 
in bloom and fruit, to show the.style of it. Plants of 
it of different sizes, down to shilling plants; and he 
was promising to send it out by the thousands next 
autumn at so much per dozen, or score, or hundred, 
or thousand. His Azaleas, vittata and narcissijlora, 
have two very excellent qualities, both force with cer¬ 
tainty, and no trouble. Vittata is quite hardy, and 
narcissijlora lasts from six to eight weeks in bloom in 
a drawing-room. 
All this, and all kinds of gossip, are allowable at a 
Bazaar, and one learns how the wind blows without 
pinching his ears at these gatherings. Cliamcerops 
humilis argenteus was the greatest novelty in Mr. 
Standish’s stall. It is the dwarf Fan Palm from 
Algiers, with a short silvery nap on the underside of the 
leaves. The stems were about four feet high, and the 
young heads just formed, for they have not been long 
introduced, and they are supposed to be 100 years old. 
Azalea amoena, the hose-in-hose flower, has crossed 
with lateritia and other sorts; but the seedlings take 
after the dwarf habit of amoena, whether itself be made 
the father or the mother of the cross ; therefore, we 
shall have an amoena section very shortly, for there is 
no end to the seedlings already, and Mr. Standish is 
going to push out a collection of six best kinds of 
them next autumn. Amcena-lateritia and Amoena - 
grandijlora were sold last year, by him, for the first 
time. The whole of this section are hardy plants, and 
with a few more turns of the cross into the Sikkim 
Rhododendrons, particularly Rhododendron ciliatum, 
in a few years we shall have as fine hardy Azaleas as 
we have of exhibition kinds. We shall also have them 
li om the size of Rhododendron ferrugineum, or hirsti- 
^ of the largest of the Sinensis breed. 
Ihe nextplants ofimportance for which Mr. Standigh 
opened the Bazaar, were the great eastern evergreen 
Rerbcris, the most beautiful of evergreens. He says the 
Iruit ot Nepalensis is the handsomest of them all, and 
that Realei is the strongest and fastest grower of them. 
He also told me, what I had already insisted on, that 
they are best in, and under, the shades of trees, or 
rocks, or waterfalls, or anywhere out of the sun, if the 
place is not too dry. Skimmia Japonica likes the 
shade also to the same degree. It will, therefore, be 
an excellent plant to cover shady banks with, as Goto- 
neaster microphylla is fitted for clothing banks facing 
the sun. Rerberis intermedia is the next cheapest, and 
trifurca is the highest priced of this group. 
The rest of his samples consisted of young Arau¬ 
carias, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and more common 
things in that style. 
There was one lot of monstrously bad grown 
Hyacinths, from some one, which should not have 
been admitted there. They were not worth the pots 
they were growing in. 
In a collection of toy Cactuses, and other succulents, 
in a stall held by a foreigner of the name of Pfersdorff, 
of 73, South Row, Kensal Hew Town, one might pick 
up a few real gems. I once had eight hundred kinds 
of Cactuses, and knew the names of most of them; 
and I once knew an amateur pay sixty guineas for one 
specimen of JKammillaria nivea cristata, the first then 
in England, if not in Europe, and there are one or two 
good plants of it, in that lot, for a few shillings. The 
common Opuntia cylindrica is here also in a cristata 
shape, or in the form of a snake turned to a cock’s 
comb; also quite cheap, and very rare and singular. 
Akammillaria Schelhausii is another rare gem, with 
hooked spines and silky senilis-like hair all over it, in the 
way of Afammillaria Rocosiana, but much finer and 
better-looking. Afammillaria Schiediana was another 
very fine kind. I often think how curious it is, or was, 
that the public taste did not take to this tribe of 
plants ; but the enormous prices asked for them, twenty 
years back, was enough to scare people from them. 
I once had a couple ot thousand seedlings of some of 
the rarest kinds of them, which were then valued at 
over a thousand pounds, by judges who are alive and 
distinguished to this day. But, one seldom sees any 
of them now but as toy plants. 
Mr. Hally, of Blackheath, had another stall of large and 
small Camellias, Epacris, Aphelexis, Cytisus, the dwarfest 
Lycopods, and others; and one of the most singular flowered 
of all the Sikkim Rhododendrons, the colour of the flower, all 
over, was a dingy kind of violet; the name is Rhododendron 
campylocarpum. 
Mr. Fonsfoid, of Brixton, had a stall of the usual furnishing 
plants. Mr. James Wood, of Norwood, had a nice collection 
of variegated plants, and another collection of Alpine plants. 
tit kly°. 0< b florist, Camberwell, a stall of furnishing plants. 
Mr. Christmas, Green Lane, Camberwell, had three blooms 
of a seedling Camellia, of some merit; a cupped red flower 
called Victoria Regina. 
Messrs Hay and Sangster, nurserymen, Newington Butts, 
r/r Sta .^ 0C ^ S anc * enc * s > among which were some 
Yv ellmgtonia gigantea , a foot high from the pot, marked 15s. 
a piece. 
, Bazaar was held in the east end of the transept, where 
the Cottager s collections were placed last year, and the 
Crystal Palace gardeners made three large handsome groups 
in that part, in aid of the features of the occasion. A large 
group of standard Rhododendrons, Camellias, Norfolk Island 
Pines, with a broad border of spring bulbs in front of them, 
just under the east-end orchestra, was remarkably well placed 
tor effect ; and a large circle of spring-forced flowers at the 
other end was greatly so, in the furnishing style. 
Ihe marble basins round the crystal fountain are still as 
gay, and now more varied with different kinds of flowers, as 
t icy weie on my last visit. The crystal foimtain itself has 
been taken to pieces, cleaned like a watch, and set up again, 
t is made up of a “ thousand pieces,” which are screwed 
together The beds and boxes for the Water Lilies have been 
new earthed, and the earth looks as strong as that of the best 
and for Beans, on a farm. Great improvements have been 
