76 
THE FLORIST AND P0M0L0GIST. 
cause better understood. What has made those of White of Selborne, and of 
the late Mr. Waterton so much relished but their simplicity ? Neither of them 
used words such as Hydrocharidaceae, and Caryophyllaceae. Perhaps such hard 
words have prevented many from entering upon otherwise so interesting studies. 
However, I know of no one who has tried to explain the use of the pith of 
plants, therefore what I have stated, and now state, is entirely from my own 
observations. 
In the early part of last season I split down two Elder shoots of the pre¬ 
vious year’s growth, exposed the pith in one, and scooped it out of the other; 
both produced offshoots equally strong. I have the same also to observe con¬ 
cerning a third shoot, from which I removed the pith with a piece of wire; 
but still more remarkable, I found the same results in green or tender shoots 
of Elder, on which I operated in the same way; with these, however, I had to 
pinch off their tender tops in order to get out the pith. Now, in my opinion, 
the marrow or pith in such is a store of food or juice to nourish plants before 
their proper sap vessels are formed. I should notice tbat buds have embryos 
of pith, and that, even when there is no connection between them and that 
of the original in the hearts of trees and branches, except by the sap ela¬ 
borated from the leaves of the young shoots. Therefore, the juices of plants 
nourish or produce pith as blood does marrow in bones; but it is only found 
in large ones, small bones are supplied with the fatty matter through their 
pores. I should state that the hearts of some plants are hollow ; still there are 
traces of pith in them, especially at the joints, and their buds abound with it. 
Perhaps the pith is absorbed with age, as marrow is to some extent in the 
bones of birds. Bishop Stanley, when speaking of the bones of geese, says 
that the marrow “ does not entirely disappear till about the end of the fifth or 
sixth month.” Canes and such plants may have pith between the sap vessels 
in their hearts, which nourish them during their growth or age. This reminds 
me of having seen coloured liquor put into fresh-bored holes in the pith or 
heartwood of trees, in the hope of its flowing with the sap and thus staining 
the wood ; but the operation was undertaken in opposition to the fact that the 
flow of juices is only in the acting sap vessels between the outer wood and inner 
bark, and those were not only severed in the act of boring, but the corks 
which kept in the liquid deprived it of any chance of entering them. How¬ 
ever, some of the wood was a little stained both below and above the holes ; 
but had no connection with the flow of the sap, the stains being merely like 
those of rust from a nail in an oak plank. 
Cossey Park. J. Wighton. 
BEDDING PELARGONIUMS. 
Having given in our last volume the results of the trial of bedding Pelar¬ 
goniums at Chiswick in 1864, as embodied in the valuable report of Mr. 
Moore, in the “ Proceedings of the Royal Horticultural Society,” we now 
extract from the same publication the conclusions arrived at in the past year, 
not only as regards the varieties previously experimented with, but those tried 
for the first time. 
The varieties which had been approved in previous seasons were grown in 
small circular beds, each filled with one kind, so as to show their appearance 
when planted in masses. The result may be taken as a general guide to the 
fitness of the respective varieties for bedding-purposes in the climate of London, 
in soil such as that which occurs at Chiswick, and in a hot and sultry summer 
like that of 1865. 
