1884 .] 
GAEDEN GOSSIP. 
143 
— (IThe new Sweet Peas raised by Mr. 
Eckford are making their way in public favour. 
In the fine soil of Boreatton Park, Bascburcb, 
the flowers attain a large size, and are richly 
coloured, and Mr. Eckford must be commended for 
his persistent attempts to add to our lists. The 
leading ones are as follows:— Imferial Blue, rich 
deep blue, flushed with purple on the crest—very 
fine and distinct; Purple King, bright plum-purple 
crest and bright blue wings—very fine and distinct; 
Cardinal, a fine and striking variety in the way of 
Invincible Scarlet, and with a pleasing flush of 
purple on the wings; Queen of the Isles, the crest 
scarlet, with white markings and flakes at the 
sides, the wings wliite, flaked with rosy-purple— 
very prettv and pleasing ; Princess of Wales, white, 
dashed and flaked with bright blue—large and very 
pretty; and Isa BcJcford, fleshy-pink crest, the 
wings almost white—very delicate and pretty. In 
addition to the size and substance of the flowers, 
they are richly fragrant. 
— tlTHE cumbrous name of DiECALACAN- 
THUS NEEVosus has been imposed on Kran- 
themurn nervosum, a very old inhabitant of our 
stoves and valuable for two reasons—it is winter¬ 
flowering, and it has blue flowers, the latter set off by 
the white veined bracts. Though of shrubby habit, 
it may be flowered in quite a young state. Like 
many other good things, it has been elbowed out 
by things of less interest, but more suitable for 
cutting or for room decoration. Its culture is of 
the simplest. Tbo^^e who are addicted to micro¬ 
scopical pursuits will find the pollen-grains very 
elegant and peculiar. 
— #F THE Noeth Ajieeican Pixes, Imown 
popularly in the United States as the White 
Pine, Yellow Pine, Bed Pine, and Pitch Pine, 
the] Bed Pine is Pinus resinosa, and occurs from 
Maine to Pennsylvania, westward to Wisconsin, and 
northwards. It is a tree of 50 feet to 80 feet high, 
belonging to the Scotch Pine section, with leaves in 
twos, and has reddish and rather smooth hark; the 
cones are about two inches long, and sometimes 
aggregated in large and close clusters; it has-been 
erroneously called the Norway Pine. The colloquial 
names, mentioned above, all occur in North America, 
and most of them represent more than one species of 
Pine, for they have been carried with them by the 
settlers to California, and there applied to other trees 
of allied nature which occur there. The White Pine 
is the name applied to the Weymouth Pine (P. 
Strobus), and in California it is transferred to Pinus 
monticola. The Yellow Pine is the name applied to 
Pinus mitis, which occurs in the southern parts of 
Eastern America, on dry and sandy soil, and reaches 
westward from New Jersey to Wisconsin. This is a 
valuable timber, durable, fine-grained, and fitted for 
flooring, &c. In California, the name Yellow Pine 
is usually applied to the Pinus ponderosa. The 
Pitch Pine is Pinus rigida. It extends along the 
eastern coast of North America, from Maine to the 
west of New York, and southwards, common on 
spare sandy rocky soil. This species belongs to the 
section with leaves in threes. The Pinus australis, 
also, is sometimes erroneously called the Pitch Pine. 
—Woods and Forests. 
— '(IThe subject of Gaedening foe Childeen 
is receiving attention in Little Folks Magazine 
for the benefit of those boys and girls who 
have their own little gardens, a series of notes being 
published therein each month by a practical writer 
under the title of “ The Children’s Own Garden, 
and What to Do in it.” 
— imn. Allen regards Eulalia japonica, 
and its varieties, vaeiegata and zebeina, which 
arc grown by him in immense quantities, the 
most ornamental of all the grasses, and considers 
cut sprays of their foliage indispensable for summer 
floral-work. 
— .^ojie experiments on Geowing Plants 
WITHOUT Eaeth have been made during the 
present year by Mr. W. Sowerby at the Eoyal 
Botanic Society’s Garden, in the Eegent’s Park, 
and are thus recorded in the Society’s Quarterly Re¬ 
cord : —“ The items necessary to sustaining vegetable 
vitality and growth are, 1, light; 2, air; 3, water. 
‘ Earth ’ in its vast variety of forms or the com¬ 
pound known under that name is but an adjunct, 
not a necessity.We placed two specimens 
of Scarlet Pelargoniums in garden pots, one filled with 
Dumesnil’s fertilised moss, and the other with fresh 
clean ordinary moss, both without any earth or admix¬ 
ture of any kind; all the soil was carefully washed from 
the roots of the plants ; they suffered little by the 
change, and after a few weeks’ growth there appears 
but little difference in the two plants; they both 
look as well and healthy, if not better, than those 
of a like kind growing as usual in earth. On the 
7th Eebruary, seedlings of the common Lupin were 
planted in a small pot filled with broken window- 
glass, the pieces varying in size from that of coarse 
sand to an inch square, and other seedlings of the 
same age and plant in a similar pot filled with boys’ 
stone toy marbles; in both cases the pots were 
placed in saucers of water, the water reaching 
nearly half-an-inch upwards from the bottom of 
the pot; nothing has since been supplied except 
water, and at the present moment one of the plants 
in the pot of broken glass is in flower, and appears 
as if grown in the ordinary way. Those in the pot 
of marbles did not get on so well, and died after 
about two months, in consequence, I think, of the 
spherical form of the marbles allowing them only 
to touch each other by points, thus not holding so 
large an amount of water amongst them as the 
broad flat surface of the pieces of glass.” 
— '^0 obtain a good samj)le of Onions for 
Pickling, the Irish Farruer's Gazette recom¬ 
mends the following plan :—For pickled onions, 
good taste requires a small even-sized well-formed 
bulb, with all the age, and ripeness, and flavour of 
those of full size. These important points are secured 
in the following manner:—Take the thinnings of 
an ordinary onion bed and heel them very thickly 
in rows in a dry, sandy corner. All these will grow 
into small bulbs, and when the leaves begin to 
wither away the crop may be taken up and exposed 
to the sunshine, when it will be found, if the work 
has been duly performed, and the weather has been 
congenial, that a crop of picklers of good form, 
even, and small-sized will be the result. 
— IJvecently some colossal samples of 
Todea baebaea have been brought from its 
seclusion in the Dandenong Kanges, near Port 
Philip. The stump-like trunk of _ one, after the 
removal of its hundreds of fronds, weighed 2,9001b.; 
it required to be dragged out of its recess by a train 
of oxen. The monster fern is to be placed in the 
conservatory of Melbourne, where the mycologist, 
the Eev. Ileinrich Tode, so long laboured for the 
