THE 
FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
RHODODENDRON METEOR. 
[Plate 529.] 
5S a liardy, ornamental, flowering slirub, 
the Rhododendron or Rose-bay may 
almost aspire to dispute the place of 
honour with the Rose, though she is recog¬ 
nised as the queen of flowers. True, the 
flowering season is shorter, but it is glorious, 
and of fair duration ; true, the blossoms 
are scentless, but they are gorgeous in the 
brilliancy and enchanting in the variety of 
their colours. On the other hand; the 
plant is presentable—a handsome evergreen 
bush—throughout the whole year, if due care 
be taken to select from the many varieties 
which have that most desirable quality of bear¬ 
ing bold and ample foliage, and retaining it 
sufficiently long to keep the branches well 
clothed. The habit of the best varieties of 
Rhododendron is dense and well furnished, 
and when large bushes in considerable quantity 
are seen, dotted over with their noble and 
many-hued flower-trusses, the rich pictorial and 
startling effect is utterly beyond the conception 
of those who have never witnessed it. 
Amongst the varieties of Rhododendron 
which can be recommended for their brilliancy 
of colour, is that called Meteor, which was 
raised by Mr. Anthony Waterer, of Knap Hill, 
near Woking, to whom we are indebted for 
the opportunity of figuring it. In this case, 
both the leaves and the flower-head have been 
somewhat reduced to come within the com¬ 
pass of our page; but enough is shown to in¬ 
dicate the broad, flat, deep-green foliage, and 
the large, compact trusses of flowers, these being 
amongst the brightest in colour which have 
been hitherto obtained—»a carmine-scarlet, 
which in the sunshine is almost dazzling, and 
which is very fairly indicated, though by no 
means actually reproduced, by the accompany¬ 
ing example of chromolithography. When to 
this brilliant colour is added the relief afforded 
by the spotting of the upper segments, and 
the high qualities of size combined with first- 
rate form and substance, the result is a variety 
of great intrinsic beauty and merit, a novelty 
which can honestly be recommended as forming 
one of the most striking ornaments of the 
American garden.-—T. Moore. 
TULIPS—CLASSIFICATION: CULTURE. 
f OWARDS florists with their own par¬ 
ticular flowers, grown less to make a 
garden gay than for their own in¬ 
trinsic interest and fascinating beauties, the 
whole Floricultural Press is so kindly disposed, 
that though we are—perhaps because of our 
fewness and isolation—no longer in possession 
of our own little works, such as so largely were 
the Midland Florist and the Gossip of the 
Garden , yet no florist need lack an outlet for 
his inquiries, information, experience, joys, and 
sorrows. To go no further than these kindly 
pages, The Florist is more than “ Midland 
and Mr. Hepworth, writing about our Tulips, 
still loved with all the ardour of old times, 
though the wide floral world may not have 
lately noted it, makes me glad to join in the 
Tulip-talk with him. 
No. 37. IMPERIAL SERIES. 
Since we can remember Tulips, though he 
is a generation older than I, and Samuel Bar- 
low, an elder brother, the White-Ground classes 
have risen with sharper contrast from, and 
among, each other ; while the Yellow-Grounds, 
the Bizarres, have developed into two well- 
separated sets of marking, red and black. 
In purity, shape, substance, colour, and 
decision of marking, all are much more near 
their projected standards of perfection. We 
have brighter scarlets in the Roses ; and in the 
Byblcemens nearer approaches to the violet, 
chocolate, and black of this difficult and re¬ 
markable type ; and purer whites in both. In 
these classes, all this has helped us to keep 
clear of those beautiful but pei’plexing flowers, 
the Rosy-Byblocmens, a marginal class in 
which a flower, opening not quite scarlet 
b 2 
