August loth, 1885. 
THE GARDENING WORLD, 
789 
and C. medullaris ; a stage along the front is nicely 
arranged -with flowering plants, &c. The sides of the 
house are shaded from the eaves with the Parisian 
blinds, which act on rollers, and Mr. Carr, the courteous 
head-gardener, speaks highly of them; they have been 
in use four years, and are practically none the worse. 
Passing on we come to the lawn, bounded on one 
side with a raised Rhododendron bed, 100 yards long, 
among which are quantities of Lilium auratum, fine 
plants several feet higher than the Rhododendrons, 
with spikes averaging twenty blooms each. The bulbs 
are left undisturbed in the soil all the winter, and no 
one could wish for better results. Ribbon borders, 
herbaceous plants, and Conifers, have a telling effect 
on other parts of the lawn. 
There are a number of glass-houses here, and others 
are in course of erection; but I do not intend to go 
through each individually. The first lot is a range 
of six large houses, two of them being vineries, with 
a good crop of medium-sized bunches of Grapes, of 
excellent quality as regards the size of the berries. 
Another is used as a stove and Orchid-house com¬ 
bined; some of the Vandas are 6 ft. high, with 
perfect foliage to the pots, and showing bloom for the 
second time this year. 
The Phalamopsis are the admiration of all who see 
them ; they hang from the roof over plants of Eucharis 
amazonica, which are liberally supplied with liquid 
manure. The largest plant of P. Schilleriana has a 
dozen full-grown leaves 16 ins. long and very broad; it 
annually produces fine spikes of bloom ; P. grandiflora 
has flowers now 4 ins. across. 
There is no doubt the natural moisture around, 
together with the ammonia arising from the plants 
beneath, are the chief cause of the Phakenopsis 
growing and blooming so vigorously. Ccelogynes, 
Cattleyas, Dendrobiums, and Calanthes are also 
making good growths in the same house. Leaving 
the range, we come to a hip-roofed stove 52 ft. long 
and 16 ft. wide. On the roof is trained Stephanotis 
floribunda and Dipladenia, on the principle advocated 
by Mr. Elphinstone at p. 757. The latter are in three 
varieties, hundreds of bloom are expanded, and the 
whole presents a charming appearance. On the 
front stage are quantities of useful table plants in 
various sized pots, while the back stage contains 
many large specimens, which certainly would make 
Mr. Carr a formidable rival at the local shows were 
he allowed to exhibit. I noticed fine plants of 
Allamanda nobilis, A. Hendersoni, Asparagus 
plumosus, Clerodendron fallax, with many spikes of 
its showy blossoms ; large, well-coloured Crotons, Dip¬ 
ladenia boliviensis and carrisima, Dracaena Youngi, 
with forty fine, dark-coloured leaves, Ixoras, also fin e 
specimens of the too seldom seen Meyenia erecta and 
the variety alba; they are beautiful things when 
grown as they are here. Two other houses are filled 
with cool and intermediate Orchids on one side, and 
flowering Begonias, Ferns, &c., on the other. Several 
are in bloom, including Cypripedium niveum, Den- 
drobium Deari, Odontoglossum Bictonense alba, 
Cattleya gigas, and an Acineta (?), which I have not 
seen before, with pale yellow sepals and petals, with 
a chocolate throat; it bears four spikes of thirty 
blooms. 
Philesia buxifolia is grown wonderfully well in the 
cool house, and has at the present time many showy 
small Lapageria-like blooms. This old-fashioned 
plant is not grown nearly so much as it deserves to 
be. In a frame close by are some filmy Ferns, most 
noticeable being some good plants of Hymenophyllum 
Wilsoni, Todea superba, and Trichomanes radicans 
Two more low span-roofed houses are devoted to 
tuberous Begonias and Gloxinias for wdnter blooming. 
The next range includes Cucumber and Melon-houses, 
with good crops of fruit, while the last tw r o are 
Orchid and Peach-houses. Lord Napier Nectarine 
ripens well without forcing, and is much appreciated 
on the table. Peaches Royal George-and Stirling 
Castle are very fine, especially the latter. 
Chrysanthemums are done well at Croydon Lodge, 
and in winter take the place of the fruit-trees in pots 
in the Orchid-house; they are well worth a visit 
when in bloom. Apples and Pears are very plentiful 
this season, and the stone fruit on walls are a good 
crop. Bees are studied, and very profitable they are ; 
some twenty modern bar-framed hives are in use, and 
many pounds of honey are annually taken from the 
supers. The kitchen-garden, although small, is 
cropped to the best advantage. Mr. Clarke takes 
great interest in anything appertaining to horticulture, 
and his gardener is to be congratulated on the satis¬ 
factory manner in which all gardening operations 
are conducted.— G. W. C. 
PTERIS SERRULATA CRISTATA. 
There are now so many forms of this useful variety, 
and, as when raised from spores, all are more or less 
liable to sport, it would be useless to give each a dis¬ 
tinctive name, yet we now and then come across 
varieties which deserve some distinction. For instance, 
that which is generally known as the “ Chiswick 
variety ” of the major form is perhaps the best, while 
Mr. H. B. May’s variety of the compact form shown 
in the accompanying illustration is certainly one of 
the best of its class. The plant is very dense and 
compact in habit, and the fronds beautifully crested. 
Many of the crested forms are very pretty in a young 
state, but after they attain a certain size the fronds will 
not maintain their position, as, owing to the pinnae 
being so heavily tasselled, they fall over; but this is 
not the case with Mr. May’s variety, the fronds of 
which stand up boldly and maintain thei character ; 
and, as may be seen from successive batches raised 
from spores in his nursery at Edmonton, it comes 
very true. The merit of this variety has been recog¬ 
nized by the Committees of the Royal Horticul¬ 
tural Society and the Royal Botanical Society, who 
have each awarded it a First-Class Certificate. Our 
illustration was taken from a photograph of one 
of the plants exhibited at South Kensington last 
autumn. 
-—— 
PASSIFLORA PRINCEPS. 
This grand winter-flowering Passion flower I saw a 
short time since remarkably well flowered at Milford 
House, the residence of E. Russell, Esq. The plant 
referred to was covering one side of a small span- 
roofed intermediate house, and is planted out in a 
space of about 2 ft. square. I measured some of the 
racemes, and found that they had flowered for 2£ ft., 
lea^ung in flower and in a bud state another 2 ft., and 
allowing for further extension as the flowers advance 
in size will make fully 5 ft. of flowers, from the com¬ 
mencement to the finishing of the racemes. The raceme 
I measured w-as not a single one, but one of a quantity, 
and I should think the smallest would reach consider¬ 
ably over 2 ft. 
I inquired from the gardener, Mr. O’Dwyer, the 
treatment it had received to give such results, and 
found previous to the property coming into the posses¬ 
sion of its present owner, that the house in which it 
is growing had been only kept as a cool greenhouse, 
and in which this Passiflora made strong growth each 
summer, but for lack of heat died back to near its base 
each winter ; and although a strong healthy plant at 
the present time, it is the first time it has given any 
flowers, and this I am persuaded is the result of allow¬ 
ing the plant to become thoroughly established and 
strong. True, in this case perhaps want of knowledge 
in the first place as to its requirements led to the pre¬ 
sent satisfactory state of things. I suggest this latter 
remark, as on the opposite side of the same house is a 
Tacsonia exoniensis which looks as if the tables are 
turned, as although it was flowering, it does not look 
in a flourishing condition, and looked as if previously 
that it had been doing better than is now the case. 
At all events it showed unmistakably that it objects to 
heat, and although it is in flower, the latter are want¬ 
ing in substance to what those grown in a cooler house 
would be, but which is not of so much importance as 
if the flowers were longer lived, neither are they so 
freely produced.— E. Dumper. 
New Gutta-percha Tree.— Instigated by the 
threatened dearth of the Gutta-percha tree, M. Heckel 
has sought a substitute, and claims to have found it 
in the Birtyrospermum Parkii (Kotschy) of equatorial 
Africa, and abundant in latitudes between Upper 
Senegal and the Nile, especially in the forests of the 
Niger and Nile regions. It affects the argillaceous 
and ferruginous soils of Bambarras Boure and Fonta- 
Djalon, where the Africans gather its fruit, which 
yields a grease called barite. The juice or milk is 
obtained by incision from the bark, and on evapora¬ 
tion resembles gutta-percha. M. Heckel states that 
he has sent seeds to various French colonies, and 
also to England, in the hope that the latter country 
will try the experiment of introducing the tree into 
her vast tropical possessions. M. Heckel also calls 
the attention of English botanists and chemists to the 
divers Indian Bassias, as he is led by analogy to infer 
that they might furnish milky products similar to the 
Bassia Parkii. 
PTERIS SERRULATA CRISTATA COHPACTA. 
