176 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ November, 
— HtTessrs. Veitoii and Sons are now send¬ 
ing out tlie superb varieties of Iris K^empferi 
introduced by them from Japan, through their 
collector, Mr. C. Maries. They include several 
varieties of great size and brilliancy of colour, which 
have been awarded First-class Certificates at the 
Royal Horticultural Society’s exhibitions during 
1879 and 1880. In Japan, as they inform us, Iris 
Kcempferi is treated as a marsh or half-aquatic 
plant, but they have grown it most successfully in 
ordinary well-worked garden soil at their seed 
grounds, near Slough. It is desirable, however, 
that the soil be rich, deep, and moist, and when the 
weather is very dry the plants should be kept well 
watered. The certificated sorts are:— Charles 
Maries, white, flaked with purplish-red; Belicata 
(duplex), white, veined and marbled with bluish 
lilac; Imperial Wonder (duplex), violet crimson, 
veined with blue, and bright yellow rayed blotch; 
Jersey Belle (duplex), pure white, with rayed yellow 
eye; Magnificence (duplex), deep rose, suffused with 
white, petaloid stigmas deep rosy lilac; Sir Stafford 
Northcote, purplish-crimson, mottled, and striped 
with blue, with bright golden-yellow rayed eye. 
— Sender tbe name of Agapanthus umbel- 
latus candidus, Mr. Bull has imported from 
the Cape a beautiful variety, very different 
from the white Agapanthus that has hitherto been 
known. It bears large full-sized umbels of flowers 
as big as those of the blue kind, the colour being a 
clear decided white. It will not only be very use¬ 
ful as a decorative plant, coming in towards the 
latter part of the summer, when good flowers are 
becoming less plentiful, but the individual blooms, on 
account of their enduring property, will be most 
acceptable for bouquets and for other floral arrange¬ 
ments. 
— TJ New Maple, Acer platanoides aureo- 
variegatum Buntzleri ,a new and handsome varie¬ 
gated variety of the Norway Maple, is figured and 
described in the Berlin Monatsschrift. The leaves 
are elegantly variegated with golden-yellow and 
dark green, some parts of the surface being mottled 
with the two colours, whilst in others one-half of a 
lobe is yellow and the other half green. It is in the 
hands of the raiser, Mr. Buntzel, nurseryman, iu 
Nieder-Schoenweide. The stock, consisting of 
grafted plants, was so much injured by the severe 
frosts of May, 1880, that it will not be sent out at 
present. 
— 2£he Grissly Bourjassotte Fig is con¬ 
sidered by a writer in the Journal of Horti¬ 
culture as the most delicious of figs. A small 
tree trained upon a south wall had this year a full 
crop of fruit, almost as abundant as the Brown 
Turkey, and infinitely superior to it in flavour. The 
fruit is handsome, of medium size, of a curious 
colour termed chocolate in the Fruit Manual, very 
soft and apt to shrivel slightly, but not to crack as 
it ripens. It is so rich as almost to clog the palate 
with its sweetness. The tree is moderately vigorous, 
somewhat apt to lose a few inches of the tips of the 
leading shoots by frost, but in other respects quite 
hardy. 
— ®e understand that the Richmond 
Horticultural Society will hold its Second 
Annual Autumn Exhibition of Chrysanthe¬ 
mums, Fruit, &c., at the Castle Hotel, Richmond, on 
Tuesday and Wednesday, November 23rd and 24th, 
1880, and that schedules will shortly be issued. 
— % writer in the Garden suggests the 
layering of Lapagerias, as a means of getting 
more wood and flowers. About a year ago, he 
layered a two-year-old and four young plants in a 
bed made in a small house. The shoots were mostly 
weak, but all w'ere layered their whole length in 
parallel lines, pegged about every six inches. A 
number of the buds soon broke, and over seventy 
shoots of all sizes have been trained up the roof like 
pot vines, some fourteen of them ranging from 10 ft. 
to 14 ft.; most of the strong ones have developed 
two or more shoots, so that a very good growth has 
been obtained, more than would have been produced 
by any other mode of culture. A number of shoots 
push from all parts of the plant soon after layering, 
but all the joints do not break at the same time. 
The half-buried leaves live, however, and push the 
following year, or sooner. A second break has just 
now begun to push from the plants, and the growths 
are stronger than the first. When the plants have 
done flowering, the shoots will be laid down again 
in the autumn beside the old ones. In this way, the 
Lapagerias may be grown like weeds, with exceed¬ 
ingly little attention. 
JEn ftlcmomm. 
— fftR. Arthur Yeitch, of the firm of 
Messrs. James Yeitch and Sons, died on Sep¬ 
tember 25th, at his residence in Chelsea, after 
a short illness, and at the early age of 37, leaving a 
widow and several children to mourn their irre¬ 
parable loss. He was not originally intended for 
the nursery business, having passed some years in 
the office of Messrs. Rothschild, but on the death of 
his father and his elder brother, he became one of 
the partners in the firm, and by his energy and 
ability speedily became a most valuable adjunct in 
the supervision and management of this immense 
establishment. In his private life he was greatly 
respected, no less on account of his kind and genial 
disposition, than for his unceasing efforts for the 
material and moral welfare of those about him. 
— ffiw Alexander Dickson, Sen., of tbe 
Newtownards Nurseries, died on October 11th, 
aged 78. He was born near Ilawthornden, 
and apprenticed to the gardening business at Dal- 
housie Castle, and removed thence to the Comely 
Bank Nurseries, Edinburgh, where he remained for 
several years. He subsequently removed to Ireland, 
to take charge of the gardens at Greyabbey, Down ; 
and in 1836 founded the Newtownards Nurseries, 
which, in his hands and those of his sons, have 
acquired a well-earned fame. 
— |Rr. Thomas Bunyard died on October 
17th, after a few days’ illness, at the advanced 
age of 76. For many years he was head of 
the firm of Messrs. Thomas Bunyard and Sons, 
nurserymen, at Maidstone, and was very widely 
respected. 
— fttR. John Mannington, of Uckfield, 
died some two months since, at the great age 
or 93. He was an ardent raiser of seedling 
fruits up to the time of his death. Mannington’s 
Pearmain Apple was raised by his grandfather, but 
was first noticed by him, and when the original tree 
was on the point of extinction, was preserved by 
his securing grafts from it. He has raised several 
excellent Pears of hardy constitution, now in the 
hands of Messrs. Paul and Son, of Waltham Cross. 
