THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Septejibee 11, 18G0. 
logic for all this, and for ten times as much ; and ten to 
one if some of us be not drawn from our own conclusions 
by that logic—and the logic of facts is the hardest of all 
to bear up against. 
One very curious fact is, that in one of these sowings, 
which was from a flat-headed white-flowering flower-headed 
Spiraea called corymbosa (a corymb is a flat flower-head, 
be it white or otherwise), very few seeds were in that 
corymb, and only four of them came to the flowering 
mood ; but one of the four is the actual Spiraea Nobleanum, 
which Mr. Noble, down at Bagshot, who first got it from 
seeds, Mr. Donald, of Woking, the next batch, and Dr. 
Lindley, believe to be a cross-bred plant between Thun- 
berg s Spiraea callosa and S. Douglasii, or Dr. Planchon’s 
Spiraea Fortunii and Douglasii. But as Dr. Planchon 
knows the origin of many continental species and of some 
tew genera of these parts—having just been their origin 
and omniparent himself, if there be such a word—we 
shall hold to this side of the species callosa, and explain 
that it is a native of Japan and China; while Spiraea ] 
Douglasii comes from the north-west side of North 
America, on the opposite shore of the great Pacific. There 
is nothing peculiar about the crossing of these two plants 
in two English nurseries; but is it not strange that Sir 
William Hooker should have received a sprig of the new 
seedling from the new world before it originated in the 
old one, as certainly he did ? and still more strange that 
corymbosa, with a flat head of white flowers, a native of 
Virginia and other southern states, should produce a 
seedling identical with Nobleanum in Kew arboretum? 
That it did so the Floral Committee can testify ; for I 
took a bit off the Kew plant for them to see at the next 
meeting after our unanimous award to Mr. Noble for his 
namesake seedling. All the logic on earth, therefore, 
will not be able to .show the origin of Spiraea Nobleanum 
to have been from the influence of pollen. I said already 
there were beds of all the three in the pleasure-ground at 
Kew for the million ; and every one who has room for a 
bed of each, or for only one plant of each, will never 
repent buying them—that is, Nobleanum, Douglasii, and 
callosa; also the two old ones called bella and aricefolia. 
A most unworthy cry was raised against Dr. Lindley three 
years back for writing up the value of callosa higher than 
some would like to go; but he did $ot write a syllable 
too much in its praise, and his critics are now confounded. 
If I am not out in my glasses, however, the Doctor and 
Mr. Gordon went wrong in their identity of the Chamce- 
cyparis something from Mexico, which was keenly can¬ 
vassed for in one of the first ballot ventures of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society. One of the original stock from Chiswick 
was in a turf-pit here, carrying indelible marks of being 
a Biota after all—that is, an Arbor Vitae, instead of a 
white Cedar. Just look to it, and see how yours turn out. 
There were lots and lots of pretty little plants of an 
Abies, which some one called Williamsonii, of which Dr. 
Newbury sent seeds, and these plants are from them, and 
are ju3t as like Abies Mertensianum as two Peas are to 
one another. Mind, these two new Conifers are, or 
probably may be, but one kind after all; but a very 
beautiful, with much of the look of Abies canadensis, but 
quite different and well worth a round sum to begin with. 
Araucaria imbricata coming up freely from seeds, lately 
put into broad pans of sandy loam in cold frames ; the 
narrow end of the seed pressed into the mould, leaving 
the one-half of the seed not covered, which is also the 
right plan with Deodar seeds. Some thousands of the 
Mount Atlas Cedar, from three to four feet, in an open 
quarter of the nursery, are coming away as freely, and 
with strong leaders, more like Deodars than the slow 
movements of the young of the Cedar of Lebanon, from 
which this is quite distinct from the seed-pans upwards ; 
and I shouid judge it, therefore, preferable to the Cedar 
of Lebanon for planting out in all parts of the British 
isles. 
The pinetum here is not yet old enough for one to 
judge correctly of the relative value of the new and 
more scarce kinds. Pinus macrocarpa, eight years 
planted, lost its leader the first season, and without any 
assistance went off with a fresh leader, and is now twelve 
feet high, after a leader or a growth of eighteen inches 
last season. I once saw a cut-down section through the 
pith of a common Spruce, when it lost its leader many 
years back, in which the pith took a beautiful curve to 
adapt itself to the new leader. Pinus insignis and Pinus 
radiata, side by side :—do not yet decide which is which, 
radiata seems the freer grower of the two ! It will turn 
out, however, that if there is any difference between 
them, they will make it up some day or other and prove 
themselves alike. A variegated Scotch Fir is the first 
of the kind I have seen. Pinus Jejfreyii seems interme¬ 
diate between Sabiniana and Pentkamiana, with a strong 
habit and greyish look. Pinus muricata, 12 feet to 15 feet 
high, in fruit for the fourth time, and is the worst of all 
the race for the ravages of the Pine grub. Pinus Fre- 
montiana, a slow, stingy grower, and very odd-looking 
customer, having the leaves single, or mostly so, and 
looking like Gorse leaves or prickles, more than those of 
a Pine. But here we fell on a collection of Tom Thumb 
Pines, the very thing I have been looking after these 
twenty years. These are the Conifers for the edges of a 
small lawn, and for children to run amongst and to jump 
over them till their heads get dizzy at the sport. I wish 
there were dwarf kinds of all the family for this very 
purpose, for boys who can jump over trees high as them¬ 
selves will never find any difficulty in conjugating a verb 
in any language. The Toms began with Laricio pygmcca, 
a very pretty little thing. Strobus nanus equally so. 
Strobus comp actus much like it, and Strobus umbraculiferus 
a real gem of a bush Pine. Then Abies excelsa Gregorii, 
probably from Elgin or Forres, where the name is well 
rooted, and another dwarf excelsa, but not so dwarf a 3 
the last, which was had from Knight and Perry without 
a name, and, probably, is the elegans of their “ Coniferous ” 
book, because it is the most elegant of all the dwarfs, and 
about four times bigger than Clanbrasiliana. Here, also, 
is Abies Mertensiana, a beautiful dwarf from necessity, 
from being frost-bitten, but is a beautiful thing when the 
new growth comes again ; and Abies Brunoniana is much 
in the same way, and the Chusan Palm by their side was 
much pinched last winter. But death or starvation will 
never be felt here, for the nursery is not a stone’s throw 
off, and can turn them out by the hundreds after any 
severe encounters with their natural enemies. 
There is yet one strange thing about the origin of 
species in that nursery. Seeds saved from the finest 
specimens of the Oriental Plane tree in these gardens 
produced three or four seedlings, which are yet identical 
in the essential characters with the occidental species; 
but as that belongs more to public park trees, for which 
1 have no room left, I shall pass it to another oppor¬ 
tunity. 
A very marked kind of Cuprcssus from Messrs. Hill 
& Godfrey, of Knap Hill, and called glauca, was quite 
new to me. It seems one of the sturdy slow-growers, 
very dense in foliage, and growing round and round, as 
if it were after the manner of a Screw Pine. Who is able 
to give its biography ? 
That most curious thing called Colletia Bictonensis, 
and which is said to have originated in the arboretum of 
Lady Itolle, I have heard upon good authority to have 
had a very different origin as a wild species, and that it 
was published years ago by Sir William Hooker as Col¬ 
letia cruciata from a dried specimen ; but I forgot to ask 
about it, although I met both Sir William and Dr. Hooker 
in this ramble. But being in the curious mood just now, 
I may tell a very curious thing—and that is, the fact that 
the iarge Convolvulus of our hedges, the Calystegia 
sepium of botany, is found in all parts of the temperate 
regions of the earth. Dr. Hooker told me he saw it in 
Chili, in Australia, and in all such places over which he 
