78 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ Mat, 
apennina are now beautiful subjects in pots 
in our cold frame. 
Greenhouse .—Day by day the floral interest 
in the greenhouse mounts up to a higher level. 
The cool weather tends to prolong the flower¬ 
ing season, and obviates the necessity for 
using shading. Dentzia gracilis is an excel¬ 
lent plant for the villa gardener’s greenhouse. 
We have some specimens in pots that are 
growing in the same soil as a year ago ; but 
by giving them occasional dressings of Clay’s 
Fertilizer (which we have no hesitation in 
saying is one of the most useful and safest of 
garden manures), they are producing fine 
heads of bloom. There is a grand class of 
plants for villa gardeners that are too little 
known, the beautiful, hybrid, sweet-scented 
Rhododendrons , raised by Messrs. Isaac Davies 
and Son, of Ormskirk. We have quite a tiny 
plant of one of these, viz., Countess of Derby, 
in a three-inch pot, that is bearing two large 
trusses of bloom ; they are of such a hardy 
character: so free and easily managed as to 
deserve a place in any amateur’s greenhouse. 
As warm and drying weather is happening, 
watering, shading, and ventilation will need 
careful looking after. Well-established plants 
coming into bloom will be benefited by the 
application of some liquid manure, or 
occasional dressings of the manure already 
mentioned.— Suburbanus. 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
anum, an Aroid of tufted habit, with oblong, cordate, 
glabrous, dark green, leathery leaves, which are de- 
fiexed from the top of the slender erect leaf-stalk, 
and marked by comparatively few but prominent 
nerves. The erect flower-stalk is double the length 
of the leaf-stalk, slender, and bears at the summit 
a spreading, heart-shaped, leathery, firm-textured 
spathe of a brilliant shining scarlet colour, having 
the surface irregularly corrugated. The spadix, 
which is about 3 inches long and of the thick¬ 
ness of a swan-quill, is ivory-white at the base, 
greenish-yellow at the tip. The plant is a native 
of New Grenada (province of Choco), where it 
was discovered by M. Andre, and by him intro¬ 
duced into M. Linden’s establishment. Those who 
remember what A. Scherzerianum was on its first 
introduction, and what it is now, are justified in 
looking forward to the career of the .present plant 
as likely to be of quite exceptional importance. M. 
Andre saw it for the first time growing on the forks 
of an immense India-rubber tree (Ficus ellipticaj 
when he mistook it for the Cardinal-bird (Lo.cia), 
but subsequently found other specimens growing on 
the ground. It will no doubt be as aineuable to 
cultivation as its ally just named, since young 
plants, eight months old, arc producing flower-buds. 
— ®he New Hellebores mentioned be¬ 
low, belong to tlie group of which 11. orientalis 
is the type. One named H. Peter Rudolph Barr 
has large imbricated bell-shaped flowers of a deep 
reddish plum-purple, with darker lines on the ex¬ 
terior, and with a thick glaucous bloom, the inner 
surface being closely marked with small darker 
purple dots, which are more or less distinctly 
arranged in lines after the style of the markings of 
some varieties of Tydeea. It is an improvement on 
one called F. C. Heinemann, and is the finest Helle¬ 
bore we have yet seen. H. punctatissimus, the freest- 
blooming variety we have met with, belongs also 
to the broadly imbricated vigorous-lxabited, large- 
flowered, orientalis type, but is much lighter in colour 
being of a pale pinkish-purple, or lilac-purple, with the 
usual greenish patches seen on some of the sepals 
in most of the forms, having, moreover, the whole 
of the inner surface thickly dotted with purple. H. 
Arthur Collins is of a dark reddish-purple outside, 
the three inner sepals being of a deep blush inside, 
and marked near the base with a few dark red lines, 
and near the centre with sundry spots of the same 
colour, while the two outer sepals are greenish on the 
inner face, and not spotted; it is a distinct and 
showy form. These three are from Mr. Barr’s collec¬ 
tion—the finest series anywhere to be seen. To the 
same group belongs specimens received from the 
Hale Farm Nursery, Tottenham, and named H. 
Thomas S. Ware, a large and showy form, producing 
large and much-imbricated flowers of good form, 
the sepals being deeply stained of a rosy-purplish 
tint, but without any conspicuous spotting. The 
variety named H. Dr. Moore, raised in the Glasnevin 
Botanic Garden, has fine whitish flowers finely 
flushed with rose-colour, and is the best of the 
forms approaching the typical H. orientalis. These 
are all very important advances on the Hellebores 
previously known. 
— ©ne of tbe handiest Fumigators we have 
met with, and one which is thoroughly effi¬ 
cient, is called Syers’ Eureka. It is both cheap 
and self-acting, and in case of sickness, as useful in 
the house as in the garden. It is made in various 
sizes,is easily worked, requiring only that apiece of 
the tobacco-paper should be lighted, and when well 
smouldering, dropped into the fumigator, and other 
material laid on the top. The draught is regulated 
by the holes shown near the bottom. The smaller 
sizes are made with a spout for inserting into plant 
cases. 
— &t a meeting of the National Dose 
Society, held on April 13th, Gf. Baker, Esq., in 
the chair, various arrangements were made 
connected with the forthcoming exhibitions of the 
Society. Amongst other things, it was decided :—• 
