268 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
December 28, 1889. 
Belle !’ They all came running in, and what do you 
think ? Father had got his lost diamond ring ! He 
found it stuck into one of the fallen Pippins, of all 
things ; and we believe that the ring got partly buried 
in the grass when he lost it, and the Apple fell right 
on to it in the night, and so found for us the lost 
diamond ring. ”— John Smith. 
--» 3 =<-- 
CHRYSANTHEMUM NOTES. 
A New National Catalogue. 
A paragraph went the round of the gardening papers 
last week to the following effect: — “ It is proposed that 
a new edition of the National Chrysanthemum Society’s 
catalogue he issued as early as convenient in the coming 
year. This work will be aided materially if catalogues 
containing novelties for the select lists, with all cor¬ 
rections and additions, be forwarded at once to Mr. 
Lewis Castle, Hotham House, Merton, Surrey, and to 
Mr. George Gordon, 1, Stile Villas, Wellesley Road, 
Gunnersbury.” 
As this was inserted without my knowledge or 
authority, I should like to supplement it with one or 
two observations to prevent the possibility of any mis¬ 
understanding. It is probable that anew catalogue will 
be issued next year, but as yet the General Committee 
of the National Chrysanthemum Society has not sanc¬ 
tioned its publication. There has been no meeting of 
the Catalogue Committee to consider what form the new 
work shall take, nor the names of the persons (if any) 
who are to be asked to assist. The paragraph as it 
stands, therefore, appears to me to be premature, and 
slightly misleading. But apart from these facts, and 
on the assumption that the new catalogue will be pre¬ 
pared in the same way, and take the same form as the 
last one, it occurs to me that the labours of the com¬ 
mittee are likely to be aided considerably more than is 
already proposed by the writer of the paragraph above 
referred to if catalogues containing novelties and 
other information likely to be serviceable be sent also 
to me for incorporation in the alphabetical list—a 
division, I make bold to say, of equal importance to the 
select lists.— C. Harman Payne, Secretary N.C.S. 
Catalogue Committee. 
Spouts. 
Miss Anne Lowe is said by many competent judges to 
be the best large Anemone Chrysanthemum in ex¬ 
istence. I grew two plants in pots, one obtained from 
Messrs. Cannell, Swanley, and another from Messrs. 
Carter. They were treated similarly, and housed the 
first week in November, and both commenced to open 
blooms the first week in December, on terminal buds— 
being started late, and grown for decoration. I shall 
send you a bloom of each to see the difference in colour; 
one is light canary-yellow, the other deep bright 
yellow, seemingly orthodox. Both resemble in foliage 
and habit the foster-parent, Lady Margaret. Has any 
of your readers observed a tendency of this kind in Miss 
Anne Lowe ? The disc in both is of the same char¬ 
acter as the guard petals. Fabian de Mediana too, 
outdoors, has come almost pure white, while retaining 
its well-known long, drooping guard petals and other 
characteristics.— TV. J. Murphy, Clonmel. 
Late Chrysanthemums. 
As time goes on the value of these for cut flowers during 
the late autumn months, and more especially at Christ¬ 
mas, will be more fully recognised than at present; and 
those who have to furnish a large quantity of cut 
flowers at that season will grow plants on purpose, and 
by a method better adapted for that end than the 
growing of them solely for exhibition purposes. 
An additional incentive is the small amount of arti¬ 
ficial heat required to grow the plants compared with 
many other subjects used in Christmas decorations. 
It is necessary at all times to keep them as cool and 
well ventilated as possible, consistent with the safe 
keeping of the blooms from damping. 
A quantity of different varieties are grown at Syon 
House, solely for the sake of cut blooms, and from 
what we saw of them recently they will keep flowering 
for a long time to come. All we noted were Japanese 
varieties, and very prominent amongst them was one 
named Japanese Christmas, or Late Duchess. The heads 
are pure white, and the florets slender and quilled nearly 
to the tip. At certain stages all are somewhat twisted 
in the same direction as Florence Percy and certain 
others. The variety is floriferous, the flower-heads by 
no means heavy, and the leaves being small, trifid and 
thin, give the sort a rather distinct appearance. Thun- 
berg presents heads of much smaller size than it does 
in autumn, but their clear rich yellow is indeed very 
telling. Another good old kind is Grandiflorum, here 
also grown under the name of Mr. Barnes. The 
florets are bright yellow, and more or less deeply 
lacerated. Another peculiarity of this variety is that 
two or three small petals are produced from the bottom 
of the tube of the flower in the same way as happens 
in Reduplicatum making the florets really semi-double 
from a botanical point of view. 
Yellow and white varieties are most popular, and 
besides Thunberg and Grandiflorum, Ethel, Martha 
Harding and Golden Dragon are other yellow kinds of 
great merit. Ethel is characterised by its nearly erect, 
sharply pointed florets. Martha Harding is also 
known under the name of Thomas Todman, and is 
usuall}’ a mid-season variety when grown for exhibition 
purposes, and keeps well. The heads are of a golden 
yellow somewhat shaded with orange, and if they are 
somewhat paler now, it is only what might be expected. 
A late dwarf variety, with long, drooping, and twisted 
golden yellow florets is Yellow Dragon, or Golden 
Dragon. The flower heads are very curious, but not so 
numerously developed as in most of the above men¬ 
tioned. 
Mrs. Charles Carey is an incurved variety, but like 
Ada Spaulding, when grown for late work, appears 
almost like a Japanese kind. In this instance, 
however, the centre is open, showing a yellow disc. The 
outer florets are, however, numerous and flat. Baronne 
de Prailly, as seen at this season of the year, is of a 
soft lilac-pink. 
ARDENING MISCELLANY. 
Rhododendron, Little Beauty. 
Compared with many of the fine hybrid greenhouse 
Rhododendrons already in cultivation, that under 
notice does not present anything remarkable in the 
way of flowers. Its origin, however, and the results 
produced by the hybridising of a variety named 
Monarch with pollen taken from R. malayanum, are 
botanically very interesting. As a rule, the seed 
parent has more effect upon the progeny than the pollen 
parent, but in this case the rule is reversed. The 
flowers of Little Beauty are small, bright red, rather 
numerous, and in all this points more to R. malayanum 
than to Monarch, which bore the seed. The leaves 
of the latter are large, elliptical, smooth, and bright 
shining green, whereas those of the former (the pollen 
parent) are small, dark green, and scurfy on both 
surfaces. Little Beauty has large leaves, comparable 
in size to those of Monarch, while the flowers are also 
somewhat enlarged, but in all other respects it re¬ 
sembles R. malayanum. Both surfaces of the leaves 
are very dark green and scurfy, with the midribs 
inclining to bronzy or brownish red. Here, then, we 
have a remarkable instance of the progeny partaking 
of the characters of the pollen parent in almost every 
particular of importance. 
A Pitcher on Begonia Adonis. 
As is now pretty generally known, this Begonia 
develops male flowers only. One of these flowers 
exhibited a peculiar freak recently at Tower House, 
Chiswick, and Mr. T. Bones furnished me with the 
specimen. With one exception the stamens were 
normal ; but one of them elongated, forming a 
narrowly funnel-shaped shortly-stalked pitcher about 
1 in. in length and nearly \ in. in diameter at the 
mouth. On microscopical examination, the interior of 
the pitcher exhibited a curious conformation. The cells 
of the upper portion, and some stripes extending down¬ 
wards, were quite normal ; but others were small, very 
densely arranged, rectangular or squarish, and pre¬ 
sented a curious appearance, owing to their great power 
of refracting the light. Towards the base, however, a 
more curious phenomenon presented itself; the cells of 
the surface had grown out in the form of hairs, club- 
shaped processes, and short, blunt, conical elevations, 
many of which were of curious aspect. They had 
geaerally plentiful protoplastic contents, especially at 
the apex, and some of them had a transverse septum 
or division at the base, while others were closely 
striated longitudinally. The most singular of all, 
perhaps, was the fact that a great number of these 
bluntly conical processes had a circular opening at the 
top, and when viewed from above the strife before 
mentioned, together with numerous protoplastic bodies, 
presented a most singular aspect, showing how readily 
nature can produce something of the character of the 
pitcher, furnished internally with glands.— J. F. 
A Large Musa Ensete. 
For sub-tropical gardening, this is the hardiest and 
most suitable of all the Musas, on account of the 
strength and rigidity of the leaves, which enable them 
to withstand the vicissitudes of our variable summer. 
It is also a splendid plant for the decoration of 
a large stove or conservatory, on account of the 
magnificent dimensions of its parts. There are some 
specimens of it in the large conservatory at Syon 
House, Brentford, and one of them has a stem about 
15 ft. high. This stem is, of course, formed by the 
persistent base or sheath of the leaf-stalks, which is all 
the more remarkable, seeing that from a botanical 
point of view it is not a stem at all. About 2 ft. from 
the base the trunk measures 10 ins. in diameter, or 
about ft. in circumference. The leaves are from 
6 ft. to 8 ft. long, nearly of equal width throughout, 
and measuring from 1J ft. to 2 ft. in diameter. They 
are of a beautiful shade of green, with the stout mid¬ 
rib red beneath. When planted out in the seedling 
state, plants of this species grow at an enormous rate. 
Lachenalia pendula. 
In [the cool compartments or wings that extend on 
each side from the conservatory at Syon House 
is a quantity of this, the largest and one of the showiest 
species of Lachenalia. The flowers are large and 
pendent, on scapes that are generally spotted with 
purple. They are red or crimson, with a large dark 
purple blotch at each side of the green tip of the inner 
segments. The species is valuable because it flowers 
during the winter months. 
Names of ths Common Holly. 
The common Holly is a native of almost every part of 
Europe from the south of Norway to the Mediterranean, 
including,[of course, Britain. It also occurs in western 
Asia, including the Caucasus. The beauty of the 
foliage, and more especially when accompanied by 
berries in winter, has caused it to be held in universal 
esteem, so that we cease to wonder at the many names 
it has received. Not only has it a name in most or all 
of the modern languages in Europe, but in many cases 
it has several. The word Holly is probably recognised 
wherever English is spoken. Hulver, Hulfere, and 
Holme are old and perhaps partly forgotten names. 
The old Anglo-Saxon Holegn doubtless survives in the 
word Hollan, which is given to the Holly in some parts 
of Scotland. The Gaelic and Irish name is Cuileann ; 
and in Welsh it is Celyn. The two latter forms of the 
word refer to the character of the leaves, as the root or 
etymology of the same comes from cul, defence, while 
cuil means that which prohibits. In Turner’s Herbal 
the name is Holy or Holy Tree, and from that some 
writers believe that it was so applied because it was 
used to commemorate the holy time of Christmas in 
houses and churches. The Swedish name Christtorn, 
the Danish Christorn, and the German Christdorn, all 
meaning Christ’s Thorn, would also lead to the same 
conclusion. It is certain, however, that many of the 
names refer to the prickly nature of the plant. 
Gladiolus, Snow-White. 
This is a new variety, which is now being distributed 
for the first time in Europe. It was raised by Messrs. 
Hallock & Sons, Queen’s, - U.S. A., with whom I saw it 
several times before it was named. It is a perfect gem, 
quite up to the raiser’s description, and will, I believe, 
find its way into every garden in which good white 
flowers are a desideratum. The blooms are very fine, 
and useful either as a spike for vase decoration, or singly 
for wiring.— Rusticus. 
Bignonia venusta. 
The best place for this species is a cool conservator}’, 
where it can be trained up the rafters to some consider¬ 
able height, and the terminal or side shoots allowed to 
hang down loosely. It is a native of South America, 
fiom whence it was introduced in 1S16, and considered 
a stove plant. Even now one occasionally meets with 
it in a stove, but it gives very little satisfaction when 
so treated, so far as we are aware. That it will thrive 
and flower satisfactorily in an intermediate or cool 
house is evident from the large plant that may be 
seen at Syon House, where it occupies the greater 
part of the top ridge of one of the cool divisions of the 
large conservatory there. It is no doubt many years 
old, for the stems near the root are of considerable 
thickness, more or less twisted, and swollen in places 
into knots of some size. Planted alongside of the 
dividing partition between two compartments the stems 
