November 21, 1891. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
181 
THE MAKING OF 
FLOWERS. 
This was the subject of an address given at the last 
meeting of the Manchester Gardeners’ Mutual Im¬ 
provement Association, by Mr. Hicks, of Owens Col¬ 
lege. In introducing the lecturer to the meeting the 
President, Mr. Bruce Findlay, said the society had 
to deal exclusively with the vegetable kingdom, and he 
had no hesitation in saying that so far as things tem¬ 
poral were concerned they had to deal with the most 
important subject that could occupy the human mind. 
Taking the utilitarian view, it must be obvious to the 
most superficial observer that we are entirely and 
absolutely dependent upon the vegetable kingdom for 
our food and raiment. Every particle of food of 
which we partook came from the soil, and every 
article of clothing we wore came from the same 
source. The fire that gave us warmth was depen¬ 
dent upon plant life. Many present could remem¬ 
ber the cotton famine, and would remember the 
misery caused by the non-supply of the produce of 
the cotton plant. Looking at the 
other side of life from whence did we 
get the highest type of beauty ? 
Flowers were the most beautiful things 
in the world. Let people imagine, 
if they could, a world without trees 
and flowers. Many of them would 
not like to live in such a world. Artists 
and poets derived their inspiration 
from the trees and flowers which 
were distributed over the earth in such 
rich profusion. 
For the necessities, conveniences, 
comforts, and elegances of life we are 
entirely dependent upon our vast 
system called the vegetable kingdom. 
That being so, he thought he was 
entitled to say that any organization 
which had for its object the increase 
and improvement of the floral pro¬ 
duction of our country is deserving of 
the support of an enlightened public. 
Seeing that things were so, it had 
been to him for many years matter 
for regret and surprise that our public 
representatives in Parliament, our 
local rulers in Town or County 
Councils, were so slow to acknow¬ 
ledge the importance of the matters 
he had named, and which he defied 
anyone to deny. If a sum of money 
should happen to fall into the hands 
of some of our governing bodies, 
he would venture to predict that if 
two propositions were submitted as 
to the distribution of the money, the 
one to buy a few pictures, the other 
to assist an association for the spread¬ 
ing abroad among the people a love 
for the pure joys of nature, or the 
spreading abroad a knowledge of the 
vegetable kingdom among the com¬ 
munity, eight out of ten would sup¬ 
port the picture proposal. That was 
an unaccountable fact, and the mem¬ 
bers of that society thought they 
could show such people a better way 
of spending the money. 
Mr. Hicks said, he agreed with Mr. Findlay that a 
great deal might be done to educate the public taste, 
and train the observing powers of the people, for we 
had now greater facilities than used to be the case 
for growing, showing, and, to some extent, distributing 
the beauties which nature is ever ready to pour into 
our hands if we are only careful enough to give her 
the means, and show an interest in them. He had 
chosen his subject that night because he thought 
something wants saying about flowers in these days, 
and because the subject, treated from his point of 
view, might be of interest to men who were person¬ 
ally engaged in the practical work of growing and 
developing flowers the year round, and from year to 
year. The first question he had to ask himself in 
considering the subject was : What is a flower ? A 
flower, he thought, would be well described as an 
object which consists of a series of organs to produce 
fertile seed. As to their origin flowers are simply 
modified vegetated shoots—which was shown by the 
doctrine that by suitable processes horticulturists 
know how to make a shrub, tree, or plant produce 
flowers, where it would not otherwise have produc 
anything but the ordinary foliage shoots. By pruning 
and other operations the plant could be made to burst 
into flower. It might be taken as a general rule that 
impaired nutrition of plants produces a condition 
favourable to the production of flowers. 
The flowers to-day are only the outcome of the 
flowers of ages ago. We could form some idea of 
what the earliest flowers would be by comparison 
with the flowers that exist to-day. The earliest 
flowers would be flowers in which each of the parts 
was free and separate one from another. Probably 
the earlier flowers would be yellow, perhaps the 
next would be white, then all the shades of pinks 
and reds, and then all the shades of blue. That was 
an ascending scale of colour which probably repre¬ 
sented the order of evolution in the matter of flowers, 
so wherever there was a yellow flower it was of the 
lower colour than a rose which is pink. Mr. Hicks 
proceeded to explain in a lucid and interesting way, 
assisted by diagrams, the way in which cross¬ 
fertilization of flowers is effected. Certain insects 
t 
Cypripedium insigne Sander.e, 
he said, seemed specially adapted by nature for 
bringing about the cross-fertilization of certain 
flowers. Yellow flowers were usually fertilized by 
insects, chiefly by small beetles. White flowers 
were said to be chiefly fertilized by small flies, but 
pinks and blues were flowers which were only fer¬ 
tilized by the more highly specialized insects, and 
especially bees. The more highly specialized a 
flower was as regarded colour, the more highly 
specialized wonld be the insect which cross-fertilized 
it. 
The point to be emphasized was that all the flowers 
we have to-day have simply risen from a modification 
of the flowers which existed ages ago. When people 
thought of the blues and the pinks and the whites 
which have come from the yellows, it could not for 
a moment be supposed that the resources of horti¬ 
culturists are exhausted. It was worth enquiring 
whether, by more careful notice of various modifi¬ 
cations, and attention to the cultivation of plants 
and flowers, it is not possible to get something a 
little different to what we already have had, 
CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE 
SANDERS. 
One of the most distinct of all the varieties of C. 
insigne that have ever appeared was that shown by 
Baron Schroder (gardener Mr. H. Ballantine), The 
Dell, Egham, at the Drill Hall, Westminster, on the 
loth inst. The brown colour, diffused more or less 
over all parts of the flower both in the type and its 
varieties hitherto in cultivation, has almost com¬ 
pletely disappeared in C. i. Sanderaj, and all that we 
could detect of it was a few minute brown spots on 
each side of the midrib of the lower half of the upper 
sepal. The basal and central portion of the latter 
was of a soft greenish-yellow, while all the upper 
portion and the sides were pure white. The 
spathulate petals were undulated on both margins 
and of a soft greenish yellow. The lip was clear, 
soft lemon-yellow, shining and like the upper sepal, 
a conspicuous and charming feature of the flower. 
The staminode was of a deep lemon-yellow with a 
raised orange-coloured knob on the centre. The pale 
green pubescent scape was about i in. 
high, and the strap-shaped deep shin¬ 
ing green leaves were 6 in. long. The 
plant is evidently of vigorous constitu¬ 
tion as the piece, when received at 
The Dell two years ago, was very 
small, but grew away vigorously and 
bore two flowers when exhibited. It 
turned up in a large importation made 
by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. three 
years ago, and is a decided acquisi¬ 
tion. A First-class Certificate was 
awarded it. The complete oblitera¬ 
tion of the veins of the lip is a striking 
peculiarity of the variety, and the 
petals are nearlyin the same condition. 
♦ 
HYDRANGEAS 
AND 
HARDY FUCHSIAS. 
At p. 52 of your issue for September 
26th the writer, in his notes on the 
former of these favourite denizens of 
the garden, refers to their hardiness 
and successful cultivation on the south 
and west coasts of England. It may 
not be generally known, however, that 
in the milder parts of Scotland, more 
particularly in some of the western 
isles, they in many instances grow 
into large specimens, and flower 
freely. In the Island of Islay on one 
occasion in December I counted 
about fifty perfectly developed trusses 
on a handsome plant growing in a 
cottage garden, and in a letter from a 
well known Scotch gardener about the 
same time, he informed me that 
many years previously, about thirty 
miles further north in the Island of 
Mull, they attained an immense size 
and flowered splendidly. 
In these islands hardy Fuchsias, 
of which F. Riccartoni is the most 
popular, often reach gigantic pro¬ 
portions, one instance being known to 
me of a large farmer’s garden being 
enclosed with a hedge of it, 8 ft. in height. These 
Fuchsias, being so easily propagated and of very 
free growth, when once rooted are especially suit¬ 
able to those whose facilities for raising many 
decorative plants are limited. Two or three strong 
rooted cuttings, planted in good soil in a clump 
together, quickly form specimens in shrubbery bor¬ 
ders or other positions, which are no mean ornaments 
in the pleasure grounds of either castle or villa. 
When v'ell established these Fuchsias require no 
protection from frost in winter. Several strong 
clumps, which occupy part of a bed near the mansion 
here, have stood the test of frequent long and severe 
frosts during the nine years I have had charge of 
them without injury. We remove the dead w^ood 
from them in the spring, and they afterwards grow 
and flower well. With recently made plantations, 
however, it may be well to err on the safe side by 
laying a few inches of coal ashes over the roots, or 
some rough stable manure, covering the latter 
neatly with fine soil, to give a finished appearance.— 
P. AT, Ayrshire, 
