178 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST, 
[[December, 
on to his 70th year. That he may continue 
the President of the National Society for 
years to come is the heartfelt wish of the 
great body of its members, and especially 
of its Executive.—E. Dean. 
EUCHARIS AMAZONICA. 
jlTHIS is a plant of easy cultivation, one 
which will bear almost any kind of 
treatment which does not descend to the 
limits of starvation temperature. We 
treat the Eucharis as an evergreen bulb, 
always supplying it with plenty of weak 
manure-water when in vigorous growth, and 
never altogether withholding it at those times 
when at comparative rest. Flowers may be 
gathered during every month of the year ; 
but there appears to be about four acknow¬ 
ledged periods, when the whole batch having 
had precisely the same treatment will send up 
enormous quantities of bloom. It is not par¬ 
ticular as to soil. When repotting we use 
turfy loam, leaf mould, and sand, in well 
drained pots or tubs. 
We have had good success with Eucharis 
when in 8 in., 10 in., and 12 in. pots plunged 
in leaves in a bed, shaded by a plant of 
Bougainvillea. The enormous quantities of the 
mauve inflorescence of this plant above, con¬ 
trasting with the profusion of the delicate white 
blooms of the Eucharis underneath, produced 
a most charming effect, and one not to be 
forgotten by those who were fortunate enough 
to see them in flower under the happy cir¬ 
cumstances above described. In this position 
they remained a year or two, when they 
became pot-bound and gave flowers less 
freely. We then gave them a liberal shift, 
using pots of 12 in., 15 in., 18 in., and 20 in., 
and paraffin tubs of 24 in. Under the new 
arrangement of potting, tubbing, &c., they 
required very much more room, and we had to 
give up a whole house to them. When we 
had finished there happened to pass by one of 
those “wise men from the East”—for there 
are plenty of them even in these days, and 
they come from all points of the compass—who, 
according to their own estimation of them¬ 
selves, know everything, reminding us very 
much of the man in Butler’s Iludihras : 
“ Who could distinguish, and divide 
A hair, ’twixt South and South-west side.” 
This wise man told us we had shifted them at 
the wrong time. What a pity, we thought, he 
had not called before we commenced shifting 
if all our future success was to be blighted 
through this ill-timed act. They were, how¬ 
ever, shifted and comfortably put in place; 
and we reasoned humbly something after this 
fashion—better to shift at the wrong time than 
not to shift at all. We had not long to wait 
for pleasant results, the plants soon put forth 
fresh leaves, fresh bulbs soon formed, and 
these in turn followed by a most liberal sup- 
put of flowers, this time filling the whole house, 
presenting such a picture as may not be met 
with in every day’s walk. The plants ^re 
again throwing up flowers plentifully, and we 
calculate that about Christmas-time we shall 
have another fine house of [Eucharis in full 
bloom. —William Miller, Combe Abbey Gar¬ 
dens, November Ith, 1884. 
PICOTEE MASTER NICHOLS. 
I BEG to dissent from Mr. Dodwell’s remarks 
at page 181 as to the respective merits 
of the above-named variety and Mary. 
While admitting that no collection is 
complete without the latter, I still hold the 
opinion, which is shared by many others, that 
the late Mr. George Rudd was quite correct in 
his description of Master Nichols, as “ fairly 
surpassing Mary.” For the last two or three 
seasons I have seen the two varieties bloomed 
side by side, and the result was always in 
favour of Master Nichols. Mr. Dodwell evi¬ 
dently overlooks the fact that when the two 
varieties met in competition at the Manchester 
Show of 1881, in the light-edged class. Master 
Nichols obtained much higher honours than 
Mary. I trust that you may be able to find 
space for this note.— A Yorkshire Amateur. 
THE BEARDED IRISES. 
I N the hardy herbaceous varieties of the 
group of Bearded Irises we have a series 
of bed or border flowers, possessing not 
■ ' only great beauty but also great variety. 
Some of them indeed almost rival the Orchids 
in the delicacy of their tints and markings. 
The annexed descriptive list we owe to Messrs. 
Barr & Son. It includes the varieties of 
Iris nphylla, ameena, neylecta, pallida, squalens, 
and variegata, which bloomed in their grounds 
