Dec. 20th, 1884. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
249 
and Mrs. Turner; Lilac: Cedo Nulli and Model of 
Perfection; Pink: Mrs. Murray, and Oracle, rose- 
purple. This is but a very short list indeed, compared 
with the number of good varieties there are to select 
from, but would probably be sufficient for an amateur 
to begin with.— C. IF. C. 
— —a — 
AN AMATEUR’S FRAME. 
I send you a sketch—an isometric view—of a 
Cucumber Frame, which may be made by any 
enterprising amateur who is fond of trying his 
hand at a little carpentering. It is drawn to a 
scale of three-sixteenths of an inch to the foot, 
and all the measurements may be taken from it. 
The frame is made so that it may be easily taken 
to pieces in a few minutes (when not in use), and 
laid by to protect it from the effects of the weather. 
It is made of 14-in. yellow deal, 8 ft. long and 6 ft. 
wide, 18 ins. deep in front, and 27 ins. deep at the 
back; tw T o 9-in. boards jointed together will make 
the front, and three boards the back; and one board 
ripped down angle ways, and each piece joined to 
two 9-in. boards, will make the two sides; each side 
is allowed to run 4 ins. past the ends of the frame, 
and the sides tenoned into the front and back, and 
secured by key wedges driven through a mortice in 
the tenons. A runner, 4 ins. wide and 1 in. thick, is 
dovetailed into the top edges of the back and front 
across the centre of the frame for the lights to run 
on, and a division piece, 1 in. thick and the same 
depth as the thickness of the lights, nailed on the 
centre of the runner. Guides, 5 ins. wide and 1 in. 
thick, are nailed on the top edges of the sides 
(outside), and allowed to stand up the thickness of 
the lights. This completes the frame. 
The lights are 2 ins. thick; the stiles and top rail 
3 ins. wide, the bottom rail 6 ins. wide and 1£ ins. 
thick ; the rails are tenoned into the stiles, and 
pinned or wedged ; the top rail has a plough-groove 
run in to receive the glass, and the stiles and bars 
rebated. The bars can be bought ready for use at 
any timber merchant’s yard, and all there is to do 
to them is to tenon the top ends into the top rail, 
which is morticed to receive them, and the bottom 
ends let into the bottom rail, the rebated part allowed 
to run on past the lower edge of the glass and rounded 
off, the stiles and bars be bored through in the centre, 
and a J-in. iron bar put through to strengthen the 
light; the horns of the lights should be rounded, 
and iron handles screwed on to the top rail to pull 
the lights up and down with. The whole should be 
painted at least two coats of paint—the frame dark 
brown or lead colour, the lights white, and the 
handles black. 
The following sizes of wood (yellow deal) will be 
required:—80 ft. 9 ins. by 14 ins., sides of frame; 
42 ft. 3 ins. by 2 ins., stiles and top rails of lights; 
9 ft. 6 ins. by 1J ins., bottom rails of lights; 80 ft. 
2 ins. by 1£ ins., bars for lights; 13 ft. 5 ins. by 1 in., 
guides on outside of frame; 6 ft. 6 ins. by 4 ft. 1 in., 
runner; 7 ft. 2 ins. by 1 in., division; 96 squares of 
glass, 9 ins. by 7 ins. The wood will cost about 12s., 
the glass about 8s., the handles and iron bar Is., 
and paint 2s.—total, £1 3s. If any reader of The 
Gardening World should feel inclined to make one, 
and does not fully understand the details, on applying 
to the Editor I shall be pleased to give further 
instructions .—James Davison. [We shall be pleased, 
too, if our correspondent will favour us with some 
more drawings of such a useful character.— Ed.] 
THE WILD CLEMATIS. 
One of the most handsome creepers of our hedges 
this past autumn, and even now, within a few days of 
Christmas, is the Wild Clematis, or, as it is usually 
called in Surrey and Sussex, the Old Man’s Beard. 
At Muntham, the Marchioness of Bath’s place at 
Findon, on the South Downs, Mr. Conway, the 
gardener, can show many interesting things, including 
his iron ornamental cottage in the grounds. He could 
show, in the early autumn, a long avenue of Figs 
stretching across the garden, loaded with ripe fruit, 
such as you rarely see except in that warm, delightful, 
fertile part of the Sussex coast, within ten miles of 
Worthing. He could show, in the sheltered dells 
where the gardens are situated, as many autumnal, 
but not unwelcome flowers blossoming out of season, 
as you could find almost anywhere ; and several exotic 
trees of unusual size, Cryptomerias and Taxodiums, 
and Palms planted outdoors several years ago and 
growing in perfect health among the other orna¬ 
mental vegetation of the shrubberies. I shall not 
attempt to publish a complete list of the tender shrubs 
and flowers of Muntham, or to describe the Dutch 
Garden, the long hedges of Yew and tortuous edgings 
of Box, though one’s mind lingers with pleasure over 
the recollection of so fair a garden, lately visited. 
I took up the pen to notice Wild Clematis which 
hangs in festoons from a height of 60 ft., among a 
group of Plane-trees at the bottom of the lawn a 
Muntham, sweeping the grass below. The lianas of 
tropical forests can hardly be more beautiful; and I 
have no doubt that the noble owner of this place, in 
surveying the scene that lies before her windows—the 
smooth-turfed hills outside her domain and the well- 
timbered park and ornate grounds around the house- 
feels a patriotic pride in the humble native plant 
which shows so grandly on the lawn, and which, at 
other dwellings in Sussex, lends its beauty to many a 
simple virgin’s bower, and to many a cottage porch. 
Virgin’s Bower, by the way, is another of the names of 
this common creeper. 
The name of Old Man’s Beard is said to have been 
derived from the mischief-making old fellow Puck, 
that fairy of the “ Midsummer Night’s Dream,” who 
says, in leading the Clown and his fellows a race 
through Oberon’s domains, “ Up and down, up and 
down, I will lead them up and down ; I am feared in 
field and town.” It was he who bewitched the cattle, 
and earned for several farms in Sussex the name of 
“ Puck Farm,” which denotes that a fatal disease of 
blood poisoning, known locally as “ The Puck,” or 
otherwise as “ Black Leg,” is common on these 
farms. 
This reference to Puck, that ancient fairy, and to 
the beard he wore as an old man—for he assumed 
many shapes—may be taken for what it is worth; 
but there is perhaps no need for a far-fetched 
derivation of this particular name of the Wild 
Clematis. Any boy in Sussex who had never heard 
of Puck, and who happened- to be cutting the stem of 
this plant into lengths for his smoking—what won’t 
boys do and endure in imitation of then- elders and 
teachers!—would perceive the likeness of the twisting 
stems and twigs of the plant, and of the white cotton¬ 
like or hairy material enveloping the seeds, to an 
aged beard. 
The other name of Virgin’s Bower has been also 
fetched from Scandinavia, much further than the 
occasion required, just as we import German waters 
which are bottled and labelled and sent over here, 
our own being far better. Freyja, the Northern 
Goddess of beauty, love, and fecundity, is supposed 
to have rested in a bower of Clematis, as did the same 
goddess under her southern name of Venus, and 
also the Virgin Mary, when she too sought repose 
in a similar bower on the way to Egypt. But although 
so many plant-names are undoubtedly connected with 
the several heathen goddesses, and others with the 
Virgin Mary, to whom all flowers were, in fact, 
dedicated by her votaries of the Middle Ages, a more 
homely and an English origin for the name in 
question may content us. It was in our Augustine 
Age of Literature, in the time of Shakespeare, that 
the name Virgin’s Bower was first applied to the Wild 
Clematis, when the old herbalist, Gerarde, so named 
it, and described it as making a bower fit for maidens. 
It is believed that the particular virgin he referred 
to was Queen Elizabeth. But the Clematis bower, 
though fit for queens, is just as well suited for their 
subjects, and let us not “ think foul scorn ” to quote the 
Virgin Queen herself, that humble and happy rustics 
may “ breath out the tender tale ” in virgin’s bowers 
formed of Clematis. 
It may be planted so as merely to shade and conceal 
a seat within, or it may be trained over a home-made 
rustic summer-house, so as to convert the plainest 
and most artless building into an object of interest and 
ornament. I would, therefore, venture to suggest to 
those who are fond of contriving this kind of simple 
garden architecture, whether the Wild Clematis might 
not be introduced into their designs rather more freely 
than it has been.— H. E. 
Dk. Begel. —We ( Gardeners' Chronicle ) learn that 
Dr. Begel, the editor of the Gartenflora, is about to 
sever his connection with that journal. In an address 
to the readers of the Gartenflora, he states that it is 
now thirty-three years since his first botanical work 
appeared, the Flora Bonennsis, which he carried out in 
association with his long since departed friend, J. 
Schmitz. Dr. Begel takes his farewell with cordial 
thanks to all his colleagues and friends for their 
assistance, and expresses the hope that the Gartenflora 
may have abundant support, and that the circle of its 
readers may constantly widen. Dr. Begel still retains 
his post as Director of the St. Petersburgh Botanic 
Garden. 
