1882.] 
THE FRANCOAS. 
1G7 
cultivator, and of these I may name H. K. As with other classes, I abstain from remaik 
Mayor, Squire Llewelyn, Squire Penson, and upon the flowers offered by myself this year , 
Thomas Moore. As in the Scarlet Bizarre but before I close with Carnations I wish to 
class, I abstain from speaking of flowers I 
offer this season only. 
Purple Flakes are the shortest of all the 
classes. Here we had Dr. Foster, noteworthy 
most of all for its ground of lovely white and 
flake of lilac, hut generally deficient in colour ; 
Florence Nightingale, worthy of its name for 
character, richness of colour, purity, and de¬ 
finite striping; James Douglas, a grand, full, and 
well-marked variety, worthy also, let me say, 
of the name it wears ; Squire Meynell and Earl 
of Stamford—the latter as sent to me, a 
synonym only of the former; certainly alto¬ 
gether unlike the Earl of Stamford originally 
shown in 1856 by the late Mr. Addis. But 
being like Meynell it is good. 
Of Scarlet Flakes, among the older varieties 
Annihilator, Clipper, Dan Godfrey, James 
Cheetham, John Bayley, and Sportsman, were 
each good. Of my own seedlings already sent 
out, we had fine flowers from Bayley Jun., 
Friar Tuck, John Ball, Diehard Gorton, 
Thomas Tomes—this especially fine, but it is 
sorely sportive, quite half the plants going to 
a glorious scarlet Self—and Wm. Mellor. 
Dose Flakes, exquisite in their beauty and 
feminine in their grace, form indeed a richly 
endowed class. Apollo (Fletcher) and James 
Merry weather, the latter so well known for its 
beauty of marking and breadth and shape of 
petal, are synonymous—so alike, indeed, that 
the wonder is how a seedling came to be so 
near its parent. But this is not the only 
mystery of Nature which a close observer will 
note as he goes forward in his study. One 
thing only will he venture to generalise into a 
law—Nature abhors hard and fast lines, and is 
full of variety; but for all this she will occa¬ 
sionally give repeats so close that the unaided 
eye fails to find a difference. Crista-galli, 
John Keet, Mrs. Tomes, Mrs. Matthews, Mrs. 
Home, and Sibyl were all fine ; and last of all 
we had Mr. Gorton’s fine trio—Tim Bobbin, 
undoubtedly the finest I have ever grown, Dob 
Doy, and Eobin Hood. Whoever wants fine 
Dose Flakes must get these directly they are 
accessible, and to these he should add Jessica, 
shown so finely by Mr. Turner at South 
Kensington and Oxford. 
speak of the great excellence of Matador, s.f., 
as shown by Mr. Turner both this year and in 
1881. It is one of the finest marked s.f.’s 
in cultivation.—E. S. Dodwell, Oxford. 
THE FRANCOAS. 
■TTNDER the specific designations of appen- 
lyj diculata, sonchifolia, rupestris, and 
vF ramosa, are cultivated three Chilian 
herbaceous plants belonging to the 
genus Francoa, the names of which, in conse¬ 
quence probably of the general similarity of 
appearance presented by the plants, have be¬ 
come to some extent mixed up. They have a 
very distinct aspect amongst other flowers, and 
are interesting plants, worth a place in select 
gardens, being of free growth, and nearly hardy, 
that is to say, they may be kept with perfect 
safety during winter in a cold frame properly 
appointed and ventilated, and then planted 
out in summer, or they may even survive 
uninjured through an ordinary winter out¬ 
doors, if planted in a favourable sheltered 
situation—at least in the south of England. 
The confused nomenclature of these plants 
has recently engaged the attention of Mr. R. 
A. Eolfe, of the Kew Herbarium, who in the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle (n. s., xviii., 265), has 
published his conclusions respecting them, 
from which source we have gleaned the fol¬ 
lowing particulars :— 
The genus Francoa was dedicated by Cavanilles in 
1802 to" the memory of Francisco Franco, a Spanish 
botanist of the sixteenth century, upon materials 
collected near the Port of San Carlos de Chiloe. by 
Don Louis Nee, naturalist to the Spanish expedition 
to South America, under the ill-fated Malaspina. 
The specific name adopted, appendiculata , refers to 
the eight short, erect, filiform, pale yellow glands, 
alternating with the stamens. Immediately after¬ 
wards, Cavanilles published a figure of the plant, 
with description, and in a note founded a second 
species, F. sonchifolia, upon an old figure of Feuillees, 
which represents a plant with a well-developed stem 
about 4 inches long. F. rupestris, of Poeppig, pub¬ 
lished by Kunze in 1831, is only this F. sonchifolia, 
while a second plant met with in gardens under the 
name F. rupestris, is simply F. appendiculata. In 
1828 D. Don proposed a third species from a plant 
collected at Santiago, F. ramosa, which he afterwards 
figured, and wEich is characterised by the much- 
branched glabrous inflorescence, glabrous sepals, and 
wEite petals. De Candolle, in 1838, overlooked 
F. rupestris, but added a fifth species, F. glalrata, 
characterised by the leaves being glabrous on the 
upper surface, and the petals white, scarcely longer 
than the calyx ; he doubtfully refers it to F. ramosa, 
and probably rightly so. It was collected by Claude 
Gay in the Cordilleras. 
