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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Arm 24, 1800. 
The antarctic Forget-me-not was first noticed in The 
Cottage Gardener from a plant which was shown at an 
early spring meeting in Regent Street, three or four 
years hack. It has been named Myosotidiuni nobile by 
Sir AY. Hooker, or, as one might say, a tidy Myosotis. 
Mr. Standish, of Bagshot, is now selling it as fast as the 
orders come in, and I am earnestly requested to ask Mr. 
Standish for a few lines on its cultivation, which, they 
say, is most peculiar. I recollect putting it down, when 
I first saw it, as a plant requiring something of the same 
treatment as the Cineraria cruenta, the original of the 
present race. It was said to be from the Chatham Islands, 
and if the rest of the plants, natives of that group of 
Islands, were like this one, the climate of that group must 
be very different from the climate of New Zealand, the 
nearest to it, very nrach drier. A friend to the Experi¬ 
mental, who imports it direct, has sent a beautiful, large, 
healthy plant of it, which is doing remarkably well 
plunged in the shaded end of a cold pit, where the sun 
does not reach it till two o’clock in the afternoon. At 
bedding-out time this plant will be planted out as Cine¬ 
raria cruenta used to be five and thirty years back—that 
is, in good, deep, moist, sandy loam, and more in the 
shade than otherwise. At the end of September, or early 
in October, that cruenta used to be taken up with good 
balls, potted, and slightly forced for six weeks, just like 
taken-up bed Geraniums at that time, more to get them 
fresh-rooted than anything else; but that degree of 
forcing set cruenta to bloom early in January, and some¬ 
times before Christmas. Now, that is exactly how I 
mean to order the new “ Never-forget-me,” or Myoso¬ 
tidiuni nobile, to be treated in the Experimental Garden 
this summer, and for the conservatory next winter and 
spring. After blooming for two or three months in the 
dead of winter, Cineraria cruenta used to be cut up into 
pieces at the roots, the little bits potted and brought 
on as bedding plants are now in the spring, and at 
bedding-out time all cruentas were put out for the summer, 
and so it will be with Myosotidiuni nobile. If Mr. Standish 
does not say that way will not do at all, and tell us the 
right-doing-way, I shall certainly risk the Experimental 
plant as I say ; and if I lose it, I shall blame Mr. Standish, 
and call on him to supply two more plants, if he does not 
put us all on the right scent at once. 
The friend of the Experimental says, “ I have imported 
it twice, first in 1855, all of which I lost, and again in 
1858. The first from Stewart’s Island, on the south of 
New Zealand, the last were obtained on the main land 
near Back’s Peninsula. It is not hardy and is a very 
curious plant to manage.” It will stand with Farfugiuvi 
grande as an ornamental-leaved plant in winter, and early 
in spring it will produce large heads of Forget-me-not 
ilowers, just like trusses of Compacium Geranium ; and 
doing out of pots the whole summer, no doubt it will be 
much used, and the sooner we know all about it, the surer 
we may go to work on it. 
The next greatest novelty which I recollect is one just 
in the same style of use—a plant as hardy as a Swiss 
Rhododendron ferrugineum or hirsutum , requiring much 
the same kind of soil and cultivation from May to the 
tail of the old year. Then this new forcing plant is taken 
up in lumps, just like taking a square turf-like lump from 
a bed of Lily of the Yalley, put into pots or boxes, and 
then into a cold pit, where it will force of itself, and be 
ready to come into the conservatory very early in the 
spring. All that has been done under my own hand this 
last season; and now and for the whole of this spring it 
has been in bloom, and as beautiful a thing as ever I sent 
into the conservatory early in the spring. We had the 
same plant under review this time last year from a rev. 
gentleman in Kent, when I put it down as an early and 
excellent spring border plant; but in such a season as 
this, and indeed nine times out of ten, it comes too early 
for effect out of doors. But, like Myosotidiuni nobile, as 
it comes so early in bloom naturally, and as it can be cut 
up for pots safe as turfing, it is a most welcome addition 
for country gardeners, who are now-a-days to keep up as 
much bloom in-doors in winter as we all used to do out- 
of-doors in summer when I first began. Last summer, 
when the leaves of this early-blooming plant were ripe 
and ready to cut, the rev. gentleman very kindly ordered 
a large lump of the plant to be sent to the Experimental. 
It was, as 1 have just said, a square solid piece of root3 
and mould, four or five inches deep, over a foot wide, and 
about twenty inches long, and looking just like such a 
piece from a bed of Lily of the Valley, all the leaves 
being cut. For the rest of the autumn and till after 
Christmas this mass stood plunged in a border of sandy 
soil: then I took it up and planted the whole batch as 
it was, among my keeping Geraniums, in the cold pit. 
The heat of this cold pit was only from covering and the 
sun at odd times ; but it was sufficient to force up the 
lovely Fpimedium colchicum, hirsutum, and pinnalum, 
for it goes by the three names, and it has been in ilower 
with me there the whole of this spring, and is, I believe, 
going to seed. It is on spikes about ten inches long, and 
from twenty to thirty flowers on a spike; and if there 
were a yellow Scilla with such a number of flowers on a 
spike, it would give an idea of this. The gentleman has 
crossed it with macranthum. I saw the cross, uhieh is 
just intermediate. The bed where the block was cut 
from for me is of a very sandy moorland sort of peat, 
which seems to suit the plant better than anything else. 
Of course blocks, or lumps, or balls of macranthum, taken 
at the end of the autumn and put under glass, with or 
without heat, would be just as free and mostly as early 
to bloom as the yellow one. 
VARIEGATED PLANTS. 
The new bedding Dahlia which I saw and mentioned 
from the Crystal Palace Show last autumn is the best 
and newest on this list. It is a beautiful lilac flower, and 
the name is Lilacina variegata. It seemed to me the 
very best Dahlia of last year for ribbon-lines and centres 
of beds; the golden variegation was just like the Golden 
Chain. I have been iu communication with Mr. Dodds, 
of Salisbury, about it, so as to be quite sure of its ‘‘ pro¬ 
perties ” for bedding purposes ; and he sent me the best 
proof—the leaves of this spring’s growth just as variegated 
and as yellow as those of last autumn: it will soon he as 
fashionable as Zelinda. And the best one to come iu 
between it and Zelinda is Orb of Day, a very constant 
and pure yellow dwarf bedding sort—the best bedding 
yellow Dahlia yet out; it is not more than two feet high. 
The old Zelinda first, then Orb of Day, and the third 
the variegated Lilacina, would make a telling background 
to any ribbon-border; or planted the same way in a bed, 
and an edging of Flower of the Day Geranium round it, 
would be equally good. Alba multiflora (Turner), is 
one of the best white bedding Dahlias ; and if any one 
chooses a row of it instead of the yellow Orb of Day it 
would do. But white Dahlias are not so good in ribbon- 
rows as in beds; and Vesuvius is the best scarlet Dahlia 
for beds, and should run behind Lilacina variegata on a 
ribbon-border. 
Gaiania splendens is in all the catalogues which have 
been sent to me this season, and will be used this year all 
over the country ; and all that I have to say of it is, that 
it is a front-row plant of the very richest yellow, either 
for bed or ribbon-border, or as a single bed by itself, and 
the nearest match-bed for it is CEnothera macrocarpa. 
Mr. Kinghorn’s Christine Geranium I have said is the 
best of all the breed of Lucia rosea. I shall have it this 
season next the Golden Chain, on the ribbon-border; but 
my plant is more dwarf, being the Victoria Bose, but 
there is no other difference between it and Christine. I 
have seen the new scarlet. Sheen Rival, by Mr. King- 
horn. It is the best scarlet of all his seedlings, and I 
have traced the Crystal Palace Scarlet to the terraces 
at Sydenham. It is just what I said of it all along, and 
