June 22, 1889. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
679 
dense that no weeds can grow in the same space. 
Plenty of room must be allowed it, because although it 
does not increase very fast, it nevertheless monopolises 
every inch of ground which it has once covered. There 
is a fine patch of it in the rockery in the gardens of the 
Eoyal Horticultural Society at Chiswick. 
Objects of Interest at Kew, 
Robinia hispida or the Eose Acacia is an ornamental 
flowering shrub of great beauty. It is a very con¬ 
spicuous object just now in one of the beds in the 
pleasure grounds, being full of pink-coloured pea-shaped 
flowers hanging from the plants in long pendulous 
racemes. 
Kalmia angustifolia. —A native of the Northern 
United States, a hardy evergreen shrub, is very pretty, 
producing freely an abundance of rose-coloured flowers, 
and cannot fail to attract attention. 
Campanula media alba .—The Canterbury Bells are 
generally popular, and are grown in most gardens. In 
one of the houses are a number of the above in 32-sized 
pots looking quite gay, suggesting the idea that these 
plants can be made useful for the purposes of decoration 
where variety is desirable. 
Streptocarpus. —Quantities of these are in flower, and 
are exceedingly pretty. As they are of easy culture 
and rather showy, and as I think capable of further 
development, a good future may possibly be in store 
for them. 
Puya Whytei. —This interesting and rather uncom¬ 
mon plant is now flowering in the Cactus house. As I 
believe it has been seldom seen in flower it is well 
worth a visit. It belongs to the family of Bromeliads, 
and is a native of Chili. The flowers are bell-shaped, 
with three petals, reflexed at the top, the colour being 
of a shining green, shading off into blue, and are pro¬ 
duced in a corymbose form on the top of a long stalk. 
Protea cynaroides. —This native of the Cape is also 
in flower in the Cactus house, and well worth notice. 
Its purple head of flowers, as its name would indicate, 
resembles in appearance those of the Globe Artichoke. 
It is a very interesting and curious subject.— Alfred 
Gaut. 
Carnation Seedlings. 
I send you two blooms of seedling border Carnations 
to show what good things may he obtained by careful 
attention to seed-saving at the present time. Careful 
manipulation brings about the most satisfactory results, 
and affords an immense amount of interest to the 
grower. I have Germania growing side by side with 
the yellow seedling, and unhesitatingly admit that the 
former is in its form and general characteristics in 
advance of the latter. Still, there is room for both. 
I have been for some time trying to add the quality of 
fragrance to the yellows as possessed by some of the 
darker varieties—for example, the dark one sent, which 
is exquisite—and hope to attain that object in the 
course of time. If you hand a very fine yellow bloom 
to a friend the expression invariably follows that “ It 
is a great pity they have no scent.” “Just so,” 
answers the old gardener, “we will see what we can 
do in bringing about so desirable an issue.”— G. Fry, 
Lewisham. [Both are good-shaped and beautiful 
border flowers, with a very stiff calyx in each case that 
shows no tendency to split. The dark purple flower 
has the delieious[odour of the old Clove.— Ed.] 
Calceolaria Sinclairi. 
A number of the species of Calceolaria have open 
slipper-shaped, or obliquely cup-formed flowers that 
differ greatly from the inflated pouches of the kinds 
with which we are more acquainted. C. violacea and 
that under notice may be given as examples. The 
latter (C. Sinclairi) is an extremely floriferous green¬ 
house species of ornamental character, and is capable 
of brightening up a collection of fine-foliaged subjects, 
or of toning down the glare produced by a mass of zonal 
Pelargoniums in flower. The flowers are produced in 
terminal branching cymes, and are cup-shaped, but 
somewhat oblique, and faintly two-lipped. They are 
white with purple spots internally. The whole plant 
varies from 12 ins. to 18 ins. in height, and is now 
finely in flower at Pendell Court, Bletchingley. 
Jasminum revolutum. 
There is some vagueness attached to the statement 
that certain specified plants may be natives of such and 
such a country, without giving any indication of the 
altitude at which it is found. This applies rather 
forcibly to J. revolutum, which is recorded as having 
been introduced from India in 1812. Now it may be 
found in many old gardens in different parts of the 
country, and even in the cold north, where it seems as 
hardy as J. officinale planted alongside of it and 
precisely under the same conditions. Being naturally 
a climber, it requires some means of support, and does 
best when planted against a wall, but requires no other 
protection whatever. Botanically it is considered as a 
form of J. humile, but is a decidedly more ornamontal 
plant. When planted agaiust a wall, it will cover the 
latter to a height of 8 ft. or 12 ft. easily. The main 
stems should be trained upright in the ordinary way, 
and the laterals pruned back every winter. The yellow 
star-like flowers are produced in great profusion from 
these laterals all through the growing season from June 
till late in autumn. The branches should be allowed 
to droop naturally as they grow. The climber has 
been flowering for some time against an east aspect 
wall in the gardens of the Eoyal Horticultural Society, 
Chiswick. 
The Guava. 
When walking recently through one of the temperate 
plant houses in the Botanical Gardens, Old Trafford, 
Manchester, I noticed specimens of the Guava (Psidium) 
fruiting very freely. Guavas are the produce of three 
or four species of Psidium, the common is P. pyriferum, 
a tree which is grown extensively in the West Indies, 
and reaches a height of from 10 ft. to 20 ft. This is 
known as the white Guava. When ripe, the fruit 
resembles a little Apple with many seeds, and it is 
from the produce of P. pyriferum that the celebrated 
Guava jelly is made. The fruit of this species is very 
extensively eaten in the West Indies, both by the 
natives and by the Europeans, either raw or in a state 
of jelly ; but it is said to possess great astringency, and 
should not be eaten by those of costive habits. At 
Manchester two species are grown and fruited, one is 
P. pomiferum, or the red Guava, sometimes known as 
the Apple-fruited, which bears freely in a high tem¬ 
perature, and is much esteemed for dessert purposes. 
But better still is the other—the purple-fruited P. 
Cattleyanum, introduced from China about 1817. The 
fruit is about the size of a small Walnut, and of a 
deep purple colour. This is grown extensively in 
China and Brazil.— R. D. 
Lathyrus rotundifolius. 
Several species of this genus are very useful and orna¬ 
mental garden plants, but none are more serviceable for 
covering banks, trellis-work and fences than the tall, 
climbing and large-flowered perennial species, amongst 
which this undoubtedly holds its place. It comes into 
flower in June, considerably earlier than L. sylvestris, 
or its various other forms, including L. s. platyphyllus 
and L. s. p. albus, both of which are held in high 
estimation. The stems of L. rotundifolius are much 
more moderate in dimensions than those of L. sylvestris, 
and for that reason it is easily managed as a border 
plant by tying it to a strong stake. Both this and L. 
sylvestris with its forms have very strong roots and 
penetrate the ground to a great depth, but they increase 
very slowly in a lateral direction, and in fact, although 
long-lived, they seldom produce suckers. All of them 
produce fruit freely, and if the seedlings are fairly 
treated they will flower the second or third year. The 
flowers of L. rotundifolius are rosy red, and numerously 
produced in one-sided racemes. Several pieces may be 
seen in the gardens of the Eoyal Horticultural Society, 
Chiswick. 
Robinia hispida. 
Where a number of specimens of this can be planted 
together, a fine effect is produced by the large deep 
purple-coloured flowers. There are several forms in 
cultivation, one of which has rose flowers, and another 
has very large leaves. Both flowers and leaves are of 
greater size than those of the common species, Eobinia 
Pseud-acacia. The latter is, however, a tree, and can 
only be planted where there is plenty of room for 
it to develop, whereas E. hispida only forms a bush a 
few feet in height, and flowers magnificently every 
year. The specific name refers to the coarse bristles or 
stiff hairs with which the younger branches and the 
fruits are densely beset. It is more suitable as a 
shrubbery plant than for planting on lawns, on account 
of the brittle nature of the branches, and their lia¬ 
bility to be broken when grown in exposed places. 
The Round-spiked Polygonum. 
Polygonum affine and P. sphserostachyum (the 
species under notice) are evidently closely allied, both 
in habit and in the form of the leaves. The former, 
however, has long slender spikes of pink flowers that 
bloom in autumn, while the latter is already in flower 
on the rockery at Kew. It is quite hardy, and may be 
considered a more showy and superior plant to its ally. 
The flower-stems rise to a height of 6 ins. or 9 ins., 
bearing a stout but shortly oblong head of blood-red 
blooms, and the spike, although broad, is not strictly 
spherical, as the name would imply. It might be so 
in starved wild specimens, but under cultivation they 
are different. It seems to increase very slowly by 
lateral extension, and this would recommend it for 
culture in the rock garden. The autumn-flowering 
P. affine, on the contrary, requires a good deal of 
space, for it soon spreads over a considerable extent of 
ground. 
The Glandular Inula. 
Owing to the great rage that prevailed for summer 
bedding some years ago, a large number of good old- 
fashioned herbaceous subjects disappeared from gardens. 
They are slowly finding their way back again, and 
amongst them Inula glandulosa, which was originally 
introduced from the Caucasus in 1804. The stems 
generally grow to the height of 2 ft., and bear a single 
large golden yellow head of flowers. The rays are very 
numerous, and are long, slender, and drooping at the 
tips, with a spread of 3 ins. or more. The whole head 
may be compared to that of a Sunflower for size, but 
it is altogether more refined in appearance. A very 
conspicuous character of the plant is the quantity of 
glands with which the involucral bracts are beset, and 
which gave rise to the specific name. As evidence of 
the ornamental character of this plant, we find that it 
is now being grown in market gardens for cut-flower 
purposes. 
Carpenteria californica. 
It is with great satisfaction we note the hardiness of 
this beautiful Californian shrub. It has now stood for 
several years against a south aspect wall at Kew with¬ 
out any protection, and is now laden with flower buds 
at the apex of the branches. A number of them are 
already fully expanded, and amply testify to the value 
of the plant as a decorative subject. The broad, 
rounded, and overlapping petals are pure white, and 
surround a mass of bright yellow stamens, and these 
again encompass the prominent ovary. The whole 
aspect of the flower at a short distance reminds one of 
a large and handsome white Eose, with apparently 
more substance to the petals. The plant is a shrub, 
attaining a considerable size in the Sierra Nevada of 
California, its native country ; but it may never attain 
the same dimensions here. The broadly lance-shaped 
evergreen leaves are of some size, and densely cover the 
shoots with a dark green leafage. It is a member of 
the Saxifrage family, but does not at all resemble the 
lovely herbaceous types. 
Hardiness of Lilium Harrisi. 
There seems to be a considerable difference of opinion 
among gardeners as to whether this popular Lily is 
hardy or not, and my experience may be useful in 
proving that it is, and that it is capable of standing a 
considerable degree of either heat or cold. Last 
November we planted a number of bulbs in the open 
ground, and without any other protection than the 
6 ins. of soil that they were covered with. By February 
the majority of them had made their appearance above 
ground, each plant having about half a dozen leaves, 
which were of a pale lemon colour, and this colour they 
retained as long as the frost continued. Indeed, the 
appearance they presented during' this period was any¬ 
thing but satisfactory, because the leaves were so soft 
that I could take hold of them by the point and roll 
them up close to the stem like so many strips of wet 
paper. After the frost took its flight, however, and 
more genial weather set in, they commenced growth 
again, and on examining them the other day I found 
that they were bearing a number of flower buds, which, 
according to their present appearance, will, I expect, 
develop into blooms of ordinary size and substance. 
The position which this variety occupies renders it 
difficult indeed for anyone to produce another Lily that 
would in any way supersede it. I understand it is 
usually regarded as synonymous with L. longiflorum 
eximium, but be that as it may, it is a charming Lily, 
and stands forcing well. We have also a number of 
these in pots, a few of which we introduced into the 
stove, the minimum night temperature of which was 
70°, and during the day in bright sunshine with the 
blinds drawn it very often reached 95°. In this heat 
they seemed to be quite at home, for each plant pro¬ 
duced five large flowers, which were cut quite six weeks 
ago.—I T. Peebles. 
