230 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
December 14, 1889. 
I have dealt with always increasing satisfaction for 
nearly sixteen years.— C. A. GasTcoin, Clophill, Decem¬ 
ber 9th, 1889. 
--- 
CHRYSANTHEMUM NOTES. 
The Judging at the Edinburgh Centenary Show. 
"With your permission, I should like to call attention 
to the j udging at the recent Chrysanthemum Centenary 
Celebration, Edinburgh. As reported in your columns, 
Mr. Lambert was ruled out of competition through 
staging only thirty-five varieties, the judges being of 
opinion that Comtesse de Beauregard and Baronne de 
Prailly were synonymous. As the subject is of interest 
to every Chrysanthemum grower, perhaps you will 
allow me to explain, and invite discussion upon a matter 
that concerns every exhibitor. Mr. Lambert staged 
forty-eight blooms in thirty-six varieties, as he be¬ 
lieves, according to the stipulations contained in the 
schedule. After the disqualification, Mr. Lambert 
consulted the National Chrysanthemum Society’s 
catalogue, which, according to the notice heading the 
Edinburgh Society’s prize list, should have been the 
authority. The three disputed blooms were forwarded 
to an eminent grower, who immediately recognised 
them as the two varieties. He also showed them to 
three members of the National Chrysanthemum Society, 
who agreed with him that the one was Comtesse de 
Beauregard and the other two Baronne de Prailly. Mr. 
Molyneux has, I understand, twice before endeavoured 
to disqualify stands containing these two varieties, and 
upon one occasion a third man, a noted judge, was 
called in, who decided against him. As this occurred 
several years ago, is it not a matter of regret that the 
question has not been settled before, so that exhibitors 
should not be left at the mercy of capricious judges ? 
In the first-prize stand, one bloom of Comtesse de 
Beuaregard and two of Baronne de Prailly were staged. 
If they are synonymous, how is it the judges ignored 
the notice in the schedule, immediately above the cup 
class, “ that not more than two blooms of any variety 
can be shown in each stand ?” I consider the difference 
between Comtesse de Beauregard and Baronne de 
Prailly obvious. The former builds itself up after the 
manner of Belle Paule, and its florets are narrow and 
twisted from the time it commences to unfold. The 
colour is paler than that of the Baronne, unless that 
variety has been subjected to strong heat. The flower 
stem is twice the thickness, and the foliage is rounder. 
Baronne de Prailly, like its sport, Carew Underwood, 
has broad petals, which do not show a disposition to 
curl; the flower does not build itself up so conically, 
and it gains its depth by its drooping florets.— S. 
Bacchus, Onslow Gardens, Shrewsbury. [As we under¬ 
stand the case, the objection raised was not that Com¬ 
tesse de Beauregard and Baronne de Prailly are identical, 
but that the bloom of the first named, exhibited by Mr. 
Lambert (as the judges believe in all good faith) was 
not distinguishable from Baronne de Prailly.— Ed.] 
A Type for a Separate Group of Chrysan¬ 
themums. 
To those who object to the multiplication of different 
groups for the classification of Chrysanthemums for 
exhibition purposes, it may be stated that a number of 
kinds already exist which are kept in the background, 
simply because they are too small to compete 
with the numerous large exhibition varieties. The 
type to which we refer is that in which the florets are 
so slender as to be almost hair-like, or comparable to 
threads. Attention was recently drawn to the fact at 
the Chrysanthemum Centenary Conference, held at 
Chiswick, by Mr. F. "W. Burbidge, of Trinity College, 
Dublin, who referred to a new Japanese variety, 
named Mrs. Carter, and then exhibited for the first 
time. The heads of this variety as shown were about 
2 1 ins. or 3 ins. across, and of a light creamy yellow, 
with very slender hair-like florets densely arranged. 
There are other Japanese varieties, both new and old, 
that might form the nucleus of the group, consisting 
of those with slender and thread-like quilled florets, 
and which could hardly fail to find many admirers on 
account of their graceful and elegant character, devoid 
of the lumpiness of large-flowering and broad-petalled 
kinds. Amongst old varieties the orange-red Tisiphone 
comes near the character of Mrs. Carter, but the heads 
are much larger. There are others, however, of a more 
attractive character than either of the above, 
although their florets are a trifle less slender. Those 
of Gold Thread are long, spreading or drooping, 
twisted, much revolute at the margins, yellow at the 
base, and bronzy orange upwards. The heads are 
pretty, and though too small to compete with large 
kinds, the variety is already of economical value for 
decorative purposes. The golden yellow disc of Angele 
Amiel may be compared to a pin-cushion, from which 
the long, slender, quilled, blush-coloured florets grow 
out, forming a semi-globular head, but so thinly 
arranged that the florets stand clear of each other and 
appear quite graceful. 
The new American variety, Shasta, develops large 
spherical heads of slender, quilled, pure white florets. 
Gloire Rayonnante, also known as Porcupine and 
Hedgehog, is of the same stamp, but has rose-coloured 
heads of great size. A dwarf and spreading habited 
variety named Monadnock has large and similarly 
double heads to the last mentioned, with bright yellow 
quilled florets. It is of American origin and quite 
new. Nor must we forget Gloriosum, with large heads 
varying from pale yellow to orange. It frequently 
appears on the exhibition table, and has slender, more 
or less perfectly quilled and twisted florets. If a clas3 
should be reserved for varieties of this type, they would 
not be driven from the field by their large-flowered and 
broad-petalled rivals. The old tasselled kinds, as they 
were called, might then be rescued from oblivion, or 
such of them as still exist. 
A Chrysanthemum Hedge. 
Fancy a fence of dwarf Chrysanthemums ! The other 
day, when strolling along one of the main roads within 
the City of Exeter, I passed some very well-kept 
front gardens. There was not too much lawn, but just 
enough to form a good setting to the semi-detached 
villas. Attached to the front of the house was a trellis- 
work verandah, on which, owing to the mildness of the 
season, the creepers (Passion Flowers and Maurandyas) 
were yet showing here and there a bloom. That useful 
old climber, Tropteolum eanariense, was perfectly happy 
among its more aristocratic brethren, and played hide- 
and-seek through the trellis in a way that showed how 
much it felt at home there. 
But the charm of the place was a natural fence of 
Chrysanthemums, of all the hues of the rainbow, 
barring blue. The plants were about 3 ft. high, very 
bushy, and led in and out of a three-barred iron fence, 
which was so completely hidden by the vigorous Chry¬ 
santhemums that one hardly noticed it. Here and 
there in the row, which was about 60 ft. long, there 
were two or three two-year-old English Wallflowers, 
whose foliage harmonised nicely with that of the 
Chrysanthemums. There was apparently no set design ; 
but the colours being well mixed, the whole row had a 
remarkably rich appearance. There were, too, some 
capital blooms on the plants. I have not seen a prettier 
front-garden effect for a long time.— Devoniensis. 
Huge and Ungainly Blooms. 
Your pertinent and timely remarks on the above 
subject, in your issue for November 23rd, will, I fancy, 
be echoed by a good number of your “Mum” readers. 
Is it not folly, this striving to over-do the Chrysan¬ 
themum ? I think it is, and that it is high time the 
big-bloom growers slackened rein a little, if not to pull 
up short and survey the ground ahead of them ; they 
should, if possible, see where they are driving to, and 
the smaller growers should ask themselves the question, 
where are they being led to, and if it would not be 
worse than folly for them to attempt to follow in the 
wake of this big-bloom business. I fear, however, not¬ 
withstanding all our objections to the contrary, there 
will always be found growers with a weakness for the 
production of the largest blooms they can possibly 
grow. I own to a little weakness myself for large 
and fully-developed blooms ; but then there are large 
blooms, and large blooms or monstrosities, as recently 
exhibited at Kingston and elsewhere. 
The large blooms I affect are those with all their 
natural grace of outline preserved, their fullness and 
delicacy of petal and of colour, and last, but not 
least, when in their fullest freshness—in short, the large 
blooms when in the fullest phase of beauty natural 
to the several varieties, and not the huge coarse blooms 
forced by high cultivation out of all their natural 
comeliness, aud with nothing about them to admire, 
save the cultivator’s skill. 
If blooms 12 ins. over are to be the models of the 
future for exhibition blooms, then assuredly we shall 
have to enlarge our show-flower boards to 48 ins. by 
36 ins., and boxes to a corresponding size. As it is, 
the size of our boards and boxes are in all conscience 
quite large enough and cumbrous enough to have to 
drag about the country to different Chrysanthemum 
shows. The necessity for anything larger would 
disgust a good many of us, and be the cause of our 
giving up the growing of exhibition blooms altogether. 
Your idea for the offering of prizes, as you suggest, for 
twelve Japanese blooms for size, and a like number for 
quality, to be shown side by side is, I think, a good 
one, but who are to be the judges to settle the knotty 
point of what is quality and what is not quality 1 
Taste differs so much in different individuals that I 
think it would be difficult for any number of 
jurors to agree as to where quality in a flower ends, 
and coarseness and ugliness begin. I would rather 
condemn and discourage altogether the growing of such 
coarse and unwieldy flowers as were those of the variety 
Edwin Molyneux, shown at the Aquarium last year, 
and of Etoile de Lyon as recently exhibited at Kingston 
and other places, on the one and sure ground of their 
non-utility and unsuitability as cut flowers for ser¬ 
viceable and general decoration. 
I fear that our “National’s ” expert judges are not a 
little to blame for this craze after huge blooms ; as they 
have in their decisions, I think, given too much 
prominence to mere size of flowers, and made it the 
cardinal and ruling point with them, to the almost 
exclusion of all others in the gauging and pointing up 
one stand of blooms against another. From these 
decisions exhibitors have taken their cue, knowing full 
well that if they cannot produce and stage very large 
blooms, no matter how coarse they may be, they stand 
very little chance of drawing in the lottery. 
If the judges of Chrysanthemums would but deal 
with the very large, coarse, and in many instances 
faded blooms, on the same principles that the judges of 
the National Rose Society deal with similar blooms of 
Roses, the craze for large and ungainly blooms would 
in time correct itself. In most cases very large flowers 
are so long in developing, that we frequently find the 
lower petals losing their crispness and colour 
long before the central petals of the flowers have 
finished unfolding—indeed, before this is complete the 
lower half of the flowers have lost colour and freshness 
to a considerable degree, and in this condition they are 
frequently seen exhibited in stands of large blooms. 
Now, with all such blooms I would do as Rose judges 
do—take so many points from them, or pass them over 
pointless ; and with all overgrown coarse-petalled 
blooms wanting in grace and symmetry natural to the 
varieties, I would deal in a similar manner, and thus 
the over-doing of the Chrysanthemum would soon be 
cured.— J. Kipling, Knebivorth. 
QUALITIES OP CHRYSANTHE¬ 
MUMS. 
(Concluded from p. 215 .) 
Passing on to a reference to the several sections, the 
incurved as representing the most perfect type may 
well have precedence. If we accept as one of the first 
principles the assertion that the incurved flower should 
be perfectly globular, we have in the Empress of India 
and its several sports a model for form, but a model 
varying so much that it affords scope for variation 
in taste, and much wider scope for variation of 
skill in producing it. "\Ye are told that a globe is 
inelegant and meaningless by those unable to appre¬ 
ciate the graceful curves of a perfectly-finished bloom 
of the variety mentioned as a model, or one of its 
progeny. 1 will not pause to discuss this point, but at 
once state that the more closely your bloom approaches 
a spherical form the greater will be the chance of 
success. The flowers should be well filled up in the 
centre, with the florets incurved regularly, and be well 
rounded at the points, as indentions are disfigurements. 
Solidity is of hardly less importance than regularity of 
outline, for thinness is at once detected by the trained 
eye, and will heavily discount the chances of the 
blooms taking a high position. A common defect in 
the incurved is flatness, which means a low crown, a 
poor centre, a sharp shoulder, and a want of substance 
in the florets, and this default can only be avoided by 
good culture, as the art of the dresser will not do much 
to remove it. 
The Japanese varieties, which rank next in import¬ 
ance, present a great diversity of form ; but for our 
purposes they can be divided into three well-marked 
groups. These groups are the incurved Japs, the 
reflexed Japs, and those with florets more or less 
twisted. In the first and third of these groups, large 
size is undoubtedly of importance, provided it does not, 
as in such varieties as Condor, Etoile de Lyon, and 
Mrs. F. Thompson, pass into coarseness. Size is of less 
importance in the reflexed Japs, but it must not be 
overlooked. In all the sections fulness and decisiveness 
of colour are essentia], for blooms that are thin or 
ineffective in colour cannot possibly render service of 
much value to the exhibitor. Blooms belonging to the 
incurved group, so well represented by Madame C. 
Audiguier and Comte de Germiny, should have their 
