March 8, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
425 
William, and I think it is better when so raised than 
when grown on in heat. As a rule I hold it is better 
to raise all seeds which do not require heat to ger¬ 
minate them in a cool temperature, because the later 
growth is more robust. Of course this remark applies 
to seeds of hardy plants, and not to very tender plants. 
— D. B. 
Classification of the Carnation. 
In my paper on pages 34 and 35 of our annual report, 
quoted from the Gardeners’ Magazine of January 11th, 
I have given my reasons for the note appended to the 
yellow ground section in our last schedule of prizes, and 
the objections, as they appear to me, lying against the 
existing system followed in the case of the white ground 
Picotee. 
“Colour being the rule of selection, we reject arbi¬ 
trarily and barbarously, in the case of the Picotee, every 
hue or combination of hues not distinctly either a red, 
or purple, or salmon, pink, or rose. And, sub-dividing 
the colours into heavy edged and light edged sections, 
we leave out in the cold, and make of no account, the 
whole of the medium or feather edged varieties ; that 
is, in the case of the single 
bloom classes. 
It appears to me that this 
is most unsatisfactory, and 
to threaten, as it is ex¬ 
tended, yet more undesirable 
results. Fifty years since 
we had two classes in 
Picotees for single blooms. 
We now have six, and I 
observe, from the copy of 
the schedule of prizes sent 
me, our friends of the 
National Carnation Society 
extend it to eight, with¬ 
out, however, covering the 
objection I have referred to 
as the medium edged class, 
or including every hue or 
combination of hues de¬ 
veloped in the flower. Best¬ 
ing upon colour it is ex¬ 
clusive, and unless we are to 
set up classes for every hue 
and shade of colour, a 
reductio ad absurdum, will 
ever remain so. 
I propose, therefore, in 
the case of the white-ground 
Picotees, to rest the division 
upon the breadth of the 
marginal colour—an easily 
understood and perfectly 
feasible arrangement in the 
case of the curvilinear 
edged flowers, and drop¬ 
ping all requirement as to 
colour —to offer prizes in 
three divisions: 1, broad- 
edged ; 2, medium-edged ; 
3, light-edged. We may 
thus do away with the re¬ 
proach of hard and fast lines 
of exclusion, sometimes, and 
in this case justly, as it appears to me, laid against us, 
and adopt a rule which, whilst allowing every hue or 
combination of hues in the flower to be brought forward, 
would require the selection not to depend upon the 
preference of individuals for particular colours or 
shades of colour—a subject upon which tastes may 
legitimately differ —but upon well defined and well 
understood intrinsic merits. 
Of course, this proposition touches only the curvi¬ 
linear edged flowers. Longitudinal markings rest upon 
a very different principle ; therefore, in place of the 
regularity of marking so harmonious in the curve, we 
have the marvellous variety of nature for our guide. 
You will note this arrangement brings the Picotee 
into equality with the two other most advanced sections 
of the Carnation—the bizarres and flakes—each having 
three sub-divisions, whilst the sections less advanced, 
the seifs, fancies, and yellow grounds, have one each ; 
an arrangement fulfilling every practical necessity.— 
E. S. Dodwell, March 3rd. 
--I*- 
Asplenium nitens. — This name is the correct one 
for the plant grown in gardens as A. macrophyllum. 
In general outline and features, the fronds bear some 
resemblance to those of A. furcatum, also grown under 
the name of A. prsemorsum ; but the plant is larger 
and more vigorous in every way, and from its distinctly 
drooping or pendulous habit it is admirably adapted 
for basket work. 
OYSTERS GROWING- ON TREES. 
Can this be true ? Yes, strange as it may seem, I am 
not extracting from a book treating on plant lore, for 
the sake of laying before your readers a piece of the 
romance of flowers, but dealing -with a statement made 
in all honesty by a traveller who has just returned 
from Honduras. He states : “ I had often heard of 
Oysters growing on the trunks of trees, and on the 
branches of trees, and whilst in Honduras, Central 
America, a friend of mine and I set aside one day to 
investigate the fact. Our dory—a kind of boat—cut 
the water like a knife, and slipped along rapidly and 
easily, with hardly a ripple in her wake, and in about 
half an hour we had left the sight of the town, with 
its convent, and shipping, and soldiers’ barracks 
behind us. We were then nearly abreast of an island 
called Mono Cave. The front of it is embowered in 
graceful cocoa-nut trees, and the back part trends off 
into swamp, and is covered with a dense growth of 
red Mangrove. The Mangrove tree grows in either 
fresh or salt-water swamps, and even in water 3 ft. or 
4 ft. deep. The limbs of the trees send shoots or roots 
down into the water, and thus a thicket of Mangroves 
is a matted mass of trunks, limbs and roots. On these 
trunks, limbs and roots, deep down under the surface 
of the water, cling bunches of Oysters, and thus are 
found the Oyster groves I had heard of. The leaves of 
these trees are of a beautiful dark green, and the swamp 
islands, from a distance, look like fairy bowers. We 
pulled our dory around to the south of the island, but 
could not get very near, as we were scraping bottom 
all the time. We passed over numerous Oyster beds 
whilst doing so, and with an ordinary rake which had 
been provided, we hauled aboard a lot of Oysters. 
They were small and flat, and the shell looked more 
like a flat clam than an oyster. But the inside tasted 
all right, and our boatman swallowed that down with 
a relish.” 
The Mangrove or Mangrove Fig is Rhizophora 
Mangle, and is found in low marshy places on the sea¬ 
shore of all tropical countries. Mangrove bogs are 
certain indicators of a malarious locality, inasmuch as 
they prevent the escape of the unhealthy miasma. On 
its stem and under the roots is found the Crab (Cancer 
uca), which is considered dangerous to eat, because it 
feeds on poisonous herbs ; and some species of Oysters 
also adhere to them, giving rise to the fabulous account 
of this mollusc being found on trees as a fruit. 
The fruit of the Mangrove germinates in a cup while 
hanging on the tree ; it is said to be sweet and edible, 
and the fermented juice made into a kind of light wine. 
— B. D. 
THE LATE MR. MAURICE 
YOUNG. 
In our last issue we briefly announced the death, at 
WokiDg, on the 24th ult., of Mr. Maurice Young, of 
the Milford Nurseries, near Godaiming, aged fifty-six 
years. By Mr. Young’s death we have lost one of the 
most honourable and respected members of the English 
nursery trade—a man who possessed many good 
qualities of head and heart—a thorough master of his 
business, and one who loved the trees and plants he 
grew as much for their own ornamental and useful 
qualities, as for their commercial value from a 
nurseryman’s point of view. He had long been in 
ailing health, and after an attack of influenza, got a 
chill while inspecting the progress of some landscape 
work he was carrying out in Kent, thac brought on a 
relapse and inflammation of the lungs, which caused 
his death. 
Mr. Maurice Young was the son of Mr. William 
Young, who, in conjunction with Mr. George Penny, 
established the Milford Nurseries about 1820, on land 
belonging to Mr. Philip Barker Webb, the celebrated 
botanist and traveller, and co-author with M. Sabin 
Berthelot of the Histoire 
Naturelle dcs Isles Canaries, 
published in 1835. The 
partnership does not appear 
to have been of long duration, 
but Mr. Young soon made 
his nurseries famous as the 
first English home of many 
new trees and plants, chiefly 
collected abroad by Mr. 
Webb, and which, about fifty 
years ago, were frequently 
noticed by Loudon in his 
Gardeners' Magazine. Mr. 
William Young was also one 
of the first to appreciate 
the value of Conifers as 
objects for garden adorn¬ 
ment ; as his son after him 
was one of the first in this 
country to go largely into the 
cultivation of Japanese plants 
for a similar purpose. Fifty 
years ago in few nurseries 
could a better collection of 
Coniferous plants have been 
found than Mr. William 
Young’s ; and thirty years 
later the same might also 
have been said of his 
son’s collections of Japanese 
plants. In early life Mr. 
Maurice Young went to 
Australia, and stayed there 
for some two or three 
years, returning home a 
few years before his 
father’s death, in the spring 
of 1862, when he suc¬ 
ceeded to the business. 
At that time the nurseries 
contained too great a pro¬ 
portion of overgrown stock 
to be profitable to the 
proprietor, but in a few years this state of affairs was 
altered, and a young thrifty stock of the rarest trees 
and shrubs soon brought the nurseries into high repute 
again. Besides the many new imported plants which 
were from time to time sent out from Milford, some 
few good things originated there, two of the most 
important, perhaps, being the Golden Chinese Juniper, 
and the Weeping Birch, Betula alba pendula Youngii, 
the first worked tree of rvhich is well known to all 
visitors to the nursery. In the deep sandy loam of the 
district, American and Japanese plants, as well as all 
kinds of hardy trees and shrubs, grow with the utmost 
luxuriance, and the thrifty character of the stock, 
combined with the cleanliness of the cultivation, 
always made a visit a source of pleasure to the real 
lover of beautiful trees. 
A few years ago Mr. Young entered into a disastrous 
speculation, outside of his nursery business, which 
ultimately brought him into sore financial difficulties, 
which he did not live to see the end of, but from which 
a less honest and straightforward man would more 
quickly have cleared himself. In the great misfortune 
which befell him, he had the sympathy of all who 
knew his real worth, and that sympathy is no less 
warmly extended to his widow and family in their 
bereavement. 
