834 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
August 31, 1889. 
S‘l<Of{ldU‘l<¥U'S$. 
- ♦ - 
Carnation Gossip. 
The Eev. A. Eawson, Fallbarrow, 'Windermere, writes 
under date of August loth :—“As a yellow self none has 
come near Germania ; it is a splendid flower, not very 
large, but perfect in form and petal. I can get no 
pollen for crossing, except from semi-double flowers, 
but I find that old plants which were potted up last 
September, and are now blooming, seem to seed much 
more readily than young ones. Have you noticed this 1 
I let the bees come into the house where they are, 
but whether this may damage the quality of the 
seedliugs remains to be seen. Be as careful as you 
please, and boycott everything you don’t want, the 
seedling will be erratic, for I have now blooming a 
small bed of them grown exclusively from yellow 7 
parents all seeded in a close greenhouse, and there is 
not a shade of yellow among the blooms.” 
Man is pow r erless in the presence of the subtleties 
of pollen. Sun, air, wind, and insects bring results 
little dreamt of, oftentimes little desired. But the 
longer I live—the more I note Nature—the more I 
marvel at and admire her wonderful diversity, and 
surely no tribe exhibits this in a larger measure than 
the Dianthus. As I go back upon my experience my 
admiration rises in an increasing measure, though year 
by year experience teaches how vain are many of our 
aims and aspirations. But we are moving ! Great 
strides have been made in the Carnation in the past 
half century.— E. S. Eodwell, Oxford, August 17 th. 
The Present Method of Exhibiting Carnations. 
On my return from a local flower show last week, my 
feelings were much the same as those of your corre¬ 
spondent “ W. W.” The orthodox plan of exhibiting 
these flowers is simply hideous, from an artistic point 
of view, apart altogether from the systematic “doc¬ 
toring ” that each specimen receives from the tweezers. 
A green board with twelve white paper discs equi¬ 
distant, each bearing a differently-coloured “lump” in 
its centre, and the “ effect ” is complete ! Why should 
such a system be allowed to continue ? I saw no Car¬ 
nations in their natural beauty and grace, not even a 
leaf to relieve the glare of colour, this being in strong 
contrast to some other exhibits, which had both foliage 
and buds attached, thus showing, to a great extent, the 
habit of the plants, besides lending an additional attrac¬ 
tion to their stands. There are several classes of plants 
besides the Carnation which are equally murdered for 
the want of a little artistic taste in arranging them, and 
hence the too common remark by the general public, 
“ If you have seen one show you have seen them all.” 
— W. K. a. 
The Growl from Oxford. 
To the growling from Oxford I must needs add my 
growl with the evidently large number of growlers. 
On glancing over the class for single blooms, in the 
first place I was struck by their large number, and it 
at once suggested itself that quantity gave place to 
quality, and the great need of adopting some such rule 
as that of the National Society, limiting the number 
of blooms exhibited by any exhibitor to two in each 
division. If this rule were adopted I believe it would 
greatly increase the popularity of the class, and scarcely 
diminish the number of exhibits, as many who now do 
not trouble to put up blooms would do so. Next, in 
the division “ Scarlet or rose Picotees,” I noticed 
several splendid blooms of Mrs. Payne (staged I believe 
by Mr. Eowan) ; these were all set aside, for what 
reason I could not ascertain. They were far superior 
to many which were given places. Now, sir, the only 
conclusion I can come to is that time would not allow the 
judges (who, by the way, our worthy “referee” 
hurried up in my hearing more than once) to fairly 
criticise the blooms, or they were awarded places on 
something like the first-eome-first-served system, owing 
to want of time to do the thing thoroughly. 
Eeferring to “ W. W.’s” letter, I cannot see how 
dressing is to be abolished. It is an institution con¬ 
nected with the Carnation and Picotee, and will not 
easily be put an end to ; you might as well expect to find 
a lo se exhibited ungroomed as a Carnation undressed. 
I quite agree that every exhibitor should dress his own 
flowers, for although not exhibitors in a certain class, 
there were judges who dressed flowers in those classes 
and judged them afterwards. We hear much of the 
impartiality of the judges, but can they ignore blooms 
they have helped to stage, and more especially if they 
belong to their most intimate friends ? 
Mr. Sydenham is like most of us, quite a “youngster,” 
and we should like an “older hand’s ” opinion on this 
subject. No doubt the business is done as well as the 
time and crush will allow, but judging with such a 
crowd of witnesses is a difficult task, and as long as the 
tent is at the mercy of all who like to walk in during 
judging, so long will growls follow the annual show of 
the Carnation and Picotee Union.— V. 
Hollyhocks. 
It is so seldom now that we see the noble Hollyhock 
shown in such perfection as was common some ten to 
fifteen years ago, that I was quite delighted with a 
grand lot staged at the Shrewsbury show last week by 
Messrs. Laing & Mather, of Kelso. The spikes were 
magnificent, and the varieties of the best. They sent 
the old growers into ecstacies again, and were greatly 
admired by the visitors generally. — A Grower. 
-- 
PHCENOOOMA PROLIFERA, 
Nearly ten years ago a gardener friend received a few 
cuttings of the above from a plant at that time in my 
possession. One of those cuttings is now a large 
specimen plant, a model in form, and a picture of 
health, but has never flowered. Though it has not 
flowered in the customary way, it can scarcely be said 
from a botanical standpoint that the peculiar excrescence 
which nature essays to produce in the stead of a flower 
is not an inflorescence. The flowering shoots, just 
when expected to show flower, branch into several new 
growths, and almost simultaneous with this, a kind of 
amentaceous minute inflorescence embraces closely the 
whole shoots on whose points the flowers should 
appear. 
When carefully examined, this apparent woolly 
substance is virtually an assemblage of colourless 
flowers from two to three lines in diameter. The plant 
has been treated in the acknowledged way for its 
proper culture, and is under the care of a most in¬ 
telligent and efficient gardener. The peculiarity has 
been examined by a considerable number of gardeners 
of repute in the locality, none of whom were able to 
give any definite explanation of the seemingly phe¬ 
nomenal character of the abortive inflorescence. Some 
of them hazarded the conjecture that the original 
plant was budded, and that the cutting which produced 
the plant in question was excised from beneath the 
budded part. Of course, this is extremely unlikely 
to have been the case, as such never showed itself in 
the original plant; still the wide gulph between the 
flower of the parent and that of the cutting almost 
excuses such a theory. Perhaps some of your numerous 
readers and correspondents will be able to throw some 
light on this strange freak of nature.— Gamma, 
Edinburgh. 
-->X<-- 
BEGONIA JOTTINGS. 
Work being pretty well over for the season, one feels 
inclined to see other people’s flowers and compare 
results. By the way, everybody seems to wish to grow 
Begonias. Even the Shah, so I am told, was no ex¬ 
ception to the rule, and soon, no doubt, we shall have 
the Duchess of Teck (the Begonia, I mean, of course) 
at Teheran. But, be this as it may, the demand for 
good things is considerably greater than the supply. 
It was quite touching the other day at Forest Hill, to 
hear the anxious inquiries of certain visitors after one 
of Mr. Laing’s beauties, more especially when, by hard 
pleading, one had just secured the only plant of the 
same likely to be sent out this season ! The gem of 
this collection just now is, without doubt, the above- 
named “Duchess of Teck,” a double yellow flower, 
with large petals and of undeniable quality. Its form 
and habit are both excellent, and, in my opinion, it is 
far beyond all such Continental yellows as have yet 
come to hand. Mr. Laing seems to recognise that 
people have made up their minds for upright flowers, 
and I saw even a scarlet, with large flowers, standing 
well above the fine leathery foliage, which I venture to 
predict will be a grand improvement. 
Pure white doubles of the same stamp were scarce, 
both at Forest Hill and Swanley, but Mr. Cannell has 
one named Mrs. Midson, which deserves special 
mention. It is of exquisite shape and purity, more 
like a large white Eose than a Begonia, with fine dark 
foliage, and a habit and carriage which leaves little to 
be desired. Among the double yellows at Swanley I 
think Eev. E. Lascelles is the finest, flowers and petals 
large, and the colour deeper than any I have seen here 
or elsewhere; the growth of the plant being stroDg and 
free there should soon be a fine stock of it. A pale 
yellow, Mrs. W. F. Bennett, is also very beautiful; and 
Mrs. Cornwallis West, yellow with shades of bronze. 
The house devoted to this year’s double seedlings is 
now stocked with flowers of remarkable beauty, the 
stems in many cases carrying the blooms well above the 
foliage. Pink, cream and flesh are the prevailing 
colours, and in these, or shades of these, Mr. Cannell 
would be hard to beat. The most noticeable fact is the 
great improvement in habit and the lusty growth of 
the plants. There is a grand show of singles, both in 
and out of doors, at Swanley, the bronze and orange- 
yellow shades having advanced greatly since last year. 
Talking of Begonias out of doors reminds me that a 
word of admiration is due in regard to the great 
Begonia field at Forest Hill. To those who know all 
that it means to raise a thousand or two, this enormous 
display is the more astonishing. The beds of singles— 
the scarlets especially—produce a grand effect. By the 
way, I wonder if Mr. Kipling recollects the friendly 
lance he broke with me in these columns on the subject 
of current-year’s seedlings as bedding plants ? I could 
not help wishing I had him beside me at Forest Hill, or 
better still—for every man has a partiality for his own 
show, however humble—that I had him here in Somer¬ 
setshire, where (August 24th) the beds are filled with 
January-sown plants which have shown a mass of bloom 
for the last six weeks, through rain and sunshine I As 
this has happened in an amateur’s garden for three 
successive years, it is surely not far from a reliable 
precedent. Of course, I do not know what second- 
year’s tubers would do, never having tried them, but I 
stoutly deny that it would be possible to get more 
bloom on the beds than they carry at present.— 
Somersetshire Rector. 
-- 
SARRACENIA WRIGLEYANA. 
There are only some six species of Sarracenia in a 
wild state, but of these there are a good many varieties 
in cultivation. The garden hybrids are, however, 
tolerably numerous, and the plant under notice is a 
hybrid between S. variolaris and S. psittacina, the 
former being the seed parent. The pitchers are of 
moderate size, ranging from 9 ins. to 12 ins. long, and 
erect. The lower and tubular part is of a bright 
fulvous green, passing into red above with a deeper 
red venation. The operculum or lid is inflated and 
hooded, lying over the mouth of the tube so as to close 
the orifice, and this, as well as the upper part of the 
tube, is closely variegated with milk-white blotches, 
and reticulated or netted with bright red. In many of 
these characters may be recognised a great preponder¬ 
ance of the influence of the seed parent, but particularly 
in the upright habit of the plant, the arching operculum 
or lid, and the beautiful spotting of milk-white blotches, 
which are semi-transparent, and very interesting from 
the naturalist’s point of view, because they are supposed 
to act as a great lure to insects, the semi-transparent 
blotches appearing like openings through which they 
can make their escape, and so get lured into the pitcher. 
Both the parents exhibit the inflated incurved lid, 
nearly covering the opening of the pitcher. It was 
raised in the garden of 0. 0. Wriglev, Esq., of Bridge 
Hall, Bury, Lancashire ; and we are indebted to 
Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, Chelsea, for the opportunity 
of illustrating it. 
-- 
AOONITUM AUTUMNALE. 
A showy border subject is the autumn-flowering 
Aconite. The stems vary from 2 ft. to 4 ft. in height 
according to soil, situation, and latitude, and the time 
of flowering also depends in a great measure upon the 
latter condition. For instance, A. autumnale is already 
flowering in the south, and that, too, before A. Napellus 
has finished. This is, no doubt, due to the copious 
rains that have fallen from time to time through the 
course of the summer, prolonging the flowering period 
of all kinds of soft-wooded plants. As a rule the in¬ 
florescence of A. autumnale is racemose under adverse 
conditions as to soil and climate, but when w 7 ell grown 
it becomes more or less branched at the base. The 
flowers are large and of a very rich blue, not unlike the 
typical blue form of A. Napellus, but altogether bolder. 
As a rule it is also dwarfer, and appears to like a higher 
temperature, because it becomes very much dwarfed in 
northern gardens, and in bad seasons, like that of last 
year, flowers rather indifferently. Another difference 
is that the species under notice has fibrous roots quite 
unlike the characteristic tubers of A. Napellus. It is 
moreover a fine herbaceous plant, and should be 
included in every collection. 
