August 1st, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
757 
STEPHANOTIS FLORIBUNDA. 
This, the sweetest and most useful of all climbers, 
is by no means difficult to grow. The soil most 
suitable for its culture is equal parts of peat and 
loam, with a dash of well-decomposed cow-manure 
and a liberal admixture of coarse, sharp silver sand. 
It enjoys a high temperature, from 70 degs. to 80 degs., 
when growing and flowering, although it will consent 
to flower and do well in a much lower one, as may 
be seen in the nurseries of Messrs. Fisher, Son & 
Sibray, Handsworth, near Sheffield, where it is 
planted out and trained along the roof of a house 
in which the temperature ranges from 50 degs. to 
55 degs., and in the autumn I have seen it smothered 
with its snowy-white, wax-like flowers. 
Strictly speaking, however, the Stephanotis is a 
stove plant, a native of Madagascar, and consequently 
it flourishes best in a high temperature and in an 
atmosphere loaded with moisture. Whether planted 
out or grown in pots the Stephanotis should be well 
drained, as in the growing season it requires an 
abundant supply of water and it is also very sensi¬ 
tive of stagnant moisture at the roots; therefore, if 
inefficiently drained, the plants cannot be kept in good 
health. During the growing season weekly waterings of 
clear, liquid manure-water are very beneficial, as also is 
an occasional dusting of Clay’s or Standen’s Manure. 
The Stephanotis should always be trained m a 
position where it can get as much light as possible, 
training across the roof at right angles with the 
rafters being preferable to training up or down the 
rafters, as one frequently sees them. The leading 
shoots should be kept a foot or more apart, as it is 
only by thoroughly ripening the young wood that you 
can fully develop the floriferousness of this lovely 
and deservedly popular plant. After flowering and 
when the wood is ripe is the proper time for pruning, 
and various modes are adopted by different cultivators, 
some pruning them almost as close as the Grape Vine. 
My practice is to cut out all the weak and exhausted 
growths and lay in thinly a few of the strongest as 
leading shoots each year. 
Another important and indispensable aid to this 
plant is cleanliness, and much can be done to secure 
this by daily attention with the syringe. The 
Stephanotis is subject to all pests that infest the 
stove, more especially mealy-bug, and the better the 
cultural conditions the faster they increase, unless 
water is daily dashed on their mealy coats with all 
possible force through the syringe or garden-engine, 
so as to disturb them. They cannot thrive or live 
long if frequently moved in this way; but, unfor¬ 
tunately, when planted out and trained on the roof, 
all cannot be attacked by this means, those on the 
upper side next the glass being out of the reach 
of the syringe. I have Stephanotis planted out 
in a house with movable lights, and to get at 
the mealy-bug or scale that may have escaped, I 
lift the lights off and give the growths a good 
dressing with Hughes’ Fir-tree Oil, at the rate of 
' a quarter of a pint to the gallon of tepid watei, 
a never failing remedy for both bug and scale; 
but care must be taken to apply it in the evening. 
This I have done when the plant has been full of 
growth and in bloom, without discolouring the latter 
or damaging the former. 
After flowering, the Stephanotis should be rested 
for several months by withholding water by degrees, 
and keeping them in a lower temperature; thus, by 
having several plants, and varying the growing and 
resting season, it is possible to have Stephanotis 
bloom throughout the greater part of the year. There 
are several varieties of Stephanotis floribunda, but 
the most floriferous one that I have met with is the 
Elvaston Castle variety, which Mr. B. S. Williams 
sent out. I have frequently seen batches of this from 
the cutting-box, whereon it would be almost im¬ 
possible to find a single joint without a truss of 
bloom.— Win. Elphinstone, Shipley .—[We are indebted 
to Mr. B. S. Williams for the use of the accompany¬ 
ing illustration of the Elvaston Castle variety, which 
flowers with greater freedom than any other variety 
of this plant that we know of.— Ed.] 
— g_■ ■—c — 
ON JUDGING GRAPES. 
The remarks on this subject at p. 746 appeared at an 
opportune moment, and I should think the writer must 
have had in his mind, at the time he penned his prac¬ 
tical and much-called for comments, the awards of the 
judges in the class for Muscats at the recent Fruit Show 
at South Kensington, in which case three large unripe 
bunches of Muscat of Alexandria (the berries being 
quite green) were placed before two lots of average 
sized and fairly well coloured bunches of the same 
variety. Before and after the judges had made their 
awards, it was the general opinion of gardeners—- 
Grape growers—that those exhibits which were placed 
second and third would and should have been placed 
first and second respectively, and that the three 
bunches of green berries (which, had they been left 
on the Vines six weeks longer would have been fine 
examples of good culture) should have been marked, 
as you very properly state, “ unripe.” This ivould—- 
as you also truly point out—have a wholesome effect 
on exhibitors, in so far that the staging of large 
bunches—or small ones for that matter—of unripe 
Grapes would soon become a thing of the past, as it 
justly deserves to be. 
Exhibits of any kind, but particularly fruit, should 
receive no consideration from the judges as to what 
the individual exhibits had been a few weeks earlier, 
or what they would become a few weeks hence. 
The judges should simply be guided by what the 
exhibits are or ought to be at the time the awards are 
being made. Such awards as those indicated above, 
made, too, in the Gardens of the Royal Horticultural 
Society of London, and I think I am right also in 
saying by members of the “Fruit Committee ” of that 
Society, who invariably award the prizes on such 
occasions, and whose opinion or verdict on the sub¬ 
jects brought under their notice should be such as 
can be accepted by fruit-growers throughout the coun¬ 
try as the “ standard ” and “ collective points ” of 
excellence, such awards, I say, and coming from 
“head-quarters,” too, are calculated to mislead as 
regards the points by which Grapes should be judged, 
and of -which ripeness is not the least. Moreover, 
whatever class of bunch or bunches the judges select 
for first prize should be adhered to in making the 
second and third award, and the judges, too, should 
be noted growers, practically acquainted w r ith the 
points of excellence which together constitute a good 
bunch of Grapes, as well as possessing a knowledge of 
the characteristics peculiar to certain varieties, the 
development or non-development of which should have 
due weight with the judges in making their awards. 
A show-bunch of Grapes should be what is 
known amongst gardeners as a “ single” bunch. This 
should be symmetrical, the berries large, well coloured 
to the foot-stalks, and having a good bloom, and of 
course the larger the bunch or bunches possessing all 
the above-named points, the more credit is due to the 
grower, who undoubtedly would, or at least should, be 
placed before exhibitors having smaller but in every 
other respect equally good bunches, at least, such is 
the opinion of “A Grower and Exhibitor .” 
Mikania apiipolia. —This is a recently introduced 
ornamental-leaved climber. It is a native of Brazil, 
and hence requires a stove temperature. The plant 
figured in The Illustration Horticole is represented as 
twining round a stake, and has somewhat of the 
general habit of a small Clematis. The leaves are 
dull green, and composed of five coarsely-toothed 
leaflets. It is a member of the large composite 
family, and said to be of comparatively simple culti¬ 
vation. The flowers are not represented, but other 
species of the genus vary from white to rose-colour, 
with the structure almost of Eupatorium, to which 
it is closely allied. 
STEPHANOTIS FLOKIBUNDA, ELVASTON VARIETY. 
