500 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
April 6, 1895. 
hardy plants under glass protection, the 
long and severe winter has prevented them 
from speaking loudly of their favourites. 
The Snowdrops, Scillas, Hellebores, Saxi- 
fragas, Crocuses, Irises, and Daffodils can¬ 
not however be overlooked when speaking 
of spring flowers, seeing that such a large 
number can and do enjoy their beauty. 
With the aid of frames, a greenhouse or 
conservatory, the lovers of hardy plants 
have been enabled to enjoy their Hyacinths, 
Tulips, Daffodils, and other Narcissi, as 
well as the rare beauty of Iris reticulata in 
some of itsvaried and richly coloured forms. 
The strong but generally pleasant and 
agreeable odours of many of the above 
hardy subjects are not their least recom¬ 
mendation. 
- < !■ -> 
W. T. Gunn & Co., Limited.—This company has 
been formed and registered, with a capital of £ 2,500 
in £5 shares, to acquire the seed business hitherto 
carried on by Messrs. W. T. Gunn & Co., at 
Sunderland ; to enter into an agreement for that 
purpose, and to carry on business as seed and bulb 
merchants. Mr. W. T. Gunn has agreed to be 
managing director for the period of five years. 
Birmingham Daffodil Show.—We are requested to 
state that in consequence of the lateness of the season 
the Daffodil Show announced to be held at the 
Botanical Gardens, Birmingham, on April gth and 
10th, has been postponed to the 24th and 25th inst. 
The London Pansy and Violet Society which will 
hold its next exhibition at the Crystal Palace on July 
6th, has just issued its schedule of prizes. There 
are twenty-six classes in all, thirteen open, and the 
same number confined to amateurs, the rewards for 
the latter consisting exclusively of silver medals and 
certificates. The classes are of a comprehensive 
character and we hope will lead to a good show. 
An “American Wonder” among Sweet Peas. - 
Messrs. W. Atlee Burpee & Co., of Philadelphia, 
U.S.A., announce the distribution of a new and 
distinct variety of Sweet Pea named The Cupid, 
and which is described as “a really dwarf Sweet 
Pea that grows but 5 in. high, and blooms so freely 
for months that it appears a perfect mass of white, 
the leaves being quite hidden from view.” It 
originated on the seed farm of Mr. C. C. Morse, 
Santa Clara, California, and it is proposed to 
exhibit the variety, grown in pots, at one of the 
coming July meetings of the R.H.S. 
Fisher, Son & Sibray, Limited.—This company was 
registered on the 21st ult., with a capital of £50,000, 
to take over the old-established business of nursery¬ 
men, seedsmen, and florists, carried on by the 
partners in Messrs. Fisher, Son & Sibray, at Hands- 
worth Nurseries, near Sheffield, Fitzalan Square, 
Sheffield, Church Street, Rotherham, and elsewhere. 
An agreement for the sale of the business by Messrs. 
Charles Fisher, Ernest Edward Sibray, Walter Earl, 
and others, the late partners in the firm, to Mr. 
Thomas George Shuttleworth, of Messrs. T. G. 
Shuttleworth & Son, Church Street, Sheffield, 
accountants, on behalf of the company, is adopted 
by the articles of the association, and the following 
are the subscribers to the memorandum of 
association:—Charles Fisher, Oakfield House, 
Hands worth, Yorkshire, one share; Ernest Edward 
Sibray, The Hollies, Handsworth, Yorkshire, one 
share; Walter Earl, Clifton House, Handsworth, 
Yorkshire,one share; William Atkinson, East Bank, 
Handsworth, Yorkshire, one share ; Sarah Atkinson, 
East Bank, Handsworth, Yorkshire, one share; 
Margaret Sheriff Earl, Clifton House, Handsworth, 
Yorkshire, one share; Mary Jane Fisher, Oakfield 
House, Handsworth, Yorkshire, one share. The 
qualification for directors is that of holding at least 
£1,500 in the company, and the first directors are 
Messrs. Charles Fisher, Ernest Edward Sibray, 
Joseph Walker, Walter Earl, and William Atkinson. 
By the articles of the association Mr. William 
Atkinson is appointed the managing director. 
William Thomson Memorial Fund.—Mr. J G. 
Veitch, Royal Exotic Nursery, Chelsea, writes:— 
“ A fund is being raised to commemorate the services 
to Horticulture of the late Mr. William Thomson, of 
Clovenfords, the sum collected to be given to the 
Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Institution, and the 
Royal Gardeners’ Orphan Fund. Should a sufficient 
sum be obtained it is proposed to keep a pensioner 
in perpetuity on the funds of each institution. To 
be done a sum of £1,250 is necessary; a perpetual 
pension to the G. R. B. I. requiring £750, and that to 
the R. G. O. F., £500, the power of electing these 
pensioners being in the hands of the Royal 
Caledonian Horticultural Society, Edinburgh- 
Should a sufficient sum not be obtained for this pur¬ 
pose, it is proposed to divide the amount raised 
between the two Institutions proportionately. It is 
hoped that a very liberal response will be received, 
not only on account of the esteem in which Mr. 
Thomson was held, but also on account of the object 
to which the fund is to be devoted.” Committees 
have been formed in London for England, and in 
Edinburgh for Scotland and Ireland, Mr. H. J. 
Veitch being chairman of the former, and Mr. J. G 
Veitch, Honorary Secretary. No better form of 
memorial to so worthy a man as Mr. Thomson 
could have been devised, and we trust the response 
to the appeal now made will be a generous one. 
The Galashiels Flower Shows for the present year 
are announced to be held on July 13th and 
September 14th. 
-—- 
SPRING FLOWERS, 
Many gardeners of what may perhaps be termed 
the old school would if asked for a definition of a 
flower garden be inclined to answer that it was a 
place where the cultivation of plants was conducted 
in a systematic way, where each path or walk has to 
be laid down with exact precision according to a 
geometrically arranged plan, and where the plants 
that are to inhabit the beds and borders must per¬ 
force borrow a portion of the very stiffness and the 
regularity of the walks which the constructors of 
the garden in question have been at such pains to 
impart to them. All must be in order, system, and 
method. Naturalness is not to be aimed at, in fact 
it is regarded as an undesirable qualification for any 
garden to possess. An artificial lustre sheds its 
peculiar light over all, and thus the sweetly beautiful, 
because so sweetly simple flowers have no chance of 
being duly recognised and their merits suitably ac¬ 
knowledged and properly appreciated. To their more 
gorgeously dressed but not more beautiful sisters are 
all the praises of the public addressed, and the sweet 
and humble flowers, lowly of origin and stature 
though they may be, have no chance in the race for 
popularity and favour when placed under such 
eminently artificial and trying surroundings. But 
when properly treated and placed in quarters where 
their surroundings are of a more kindly and appro¬ 
priate character, then it is that we discover how 
beautiful they really are, and then straightway pro¬ 
ceed to wonder how it is that horticulturalists gener¬ 
ally are so tardy and backward in making use of 
them. 
Many of the lovely spring flowers possess an inex¬ 
plicable indescribable charm of their own that is 
perhaps all the more pleasing because of its very vague¬ 
ness. Patches of Snowdrops, clumps of Daffodils, or 
groups of Scillas and Chionodoxas, and lines of Cro¬ 
cuses look well enough, no doubt, when grown in the 
herbaceous border or in beds, but their often sadly 
incongruous surroundings considerably mar and de¬ 
tract from their true beauty. If people did but 
know what eminently brilliant effects might be pro¬ 
duced, and what bright and pleasing touches of 
colour might be given to our all too sombre shrub¬ 
beries and pleasure grounds by a tasteful utilisation 
of the hardy qualities of some of the early flowering 
plants we should find that many more attempts 
would be made than have been up to the present to 
naturalise suitable subjects. 
A splendid object lesson of what may be done in 
this way has been afforded during the past week or 
two to visitors to Kew Gardens in the effective way 
in which Crocuses have been used to enliven the 
appearance of the lawns and pleasure grounds. Large 
batches of the yellow, white, and purple-flowered 
varieties are to be seen in different parts, and by the 
well known Turkey Oak in the Broad Walk the show 
has been particularly good. The system of planting 
in masses of one colour is evidently the true one, for 
much more striking and gorgeous results are ob¬ 
tained in this way than when a number of varieties 
are mixed together. 
We certainly do not advocate the indiscriminate 
planting of bulbs in places both suitable and unsuit¬ 
able, but we do contend that our flower gardens 
might be brightened and their charms considerably 
heightened during the early months of the year by a 
judicious naturalisation of hardy spring flowers in 
appropriate spots. The expense that this would en¬ 
tail need not necessarily be a large one, for sufficient 
corms of Crocuses or bulbs of Narcissi, for instance, 
to produce really fine effects may be had quite good 
enough for the purpose at a comparatively trifling 
cost. After the first trouble of planting, nothing 
further would be needed in the majority of cases ; 
and thus year after year a show would be obtained 
with practically no trouble at all. In planting Nar¬ 
cissi it is important, however, that the position chosen 
should not be one where the grass is to be mown 
for hay, for the leaves of the Narcissus possess an 
acrid and a poisonous virtue that might be dangerous 
if eaten by cattle. With Crocuses, on the other hand, 
this objection does not exist, and besides their season 
of growth is usually over before the grass reaches 
any height. Very bright and pleasing effects may 
be produced by the employment of the common Cow¬ 
slip, Primula veris, whilst a fine stretch of the Blue¬ 
bell, Scilla nutans presents a truly magnificent ap¬ 
pearance. Indeed, there is a wealth of subjects 
which if properly used might enliven many what are 
at present dull and uninteresting spots, and cause 
many an odd corner in the pleasure grounds to liter¬ 
ally glow with beauty, and thus our flower gardens 
instead of occupying as now a comparatively 
restricted space, might be very greatly extended at a 
trifling expense, and with very little trouble in com¬ 
parison with the results achieved. The one great 
point to be noted whilst planting is that the bulbs 
or corms, as the case may be, should be set out as 
irregularly as possible, and nothing like planting in 
lines or at regular intervals should be tolerated. 
—H. 
-- 5 -- 
THE LILY OF THE 
VALLEY. 
Botanically, the genus is " monotypic,” that is to 
say, our little flower has no immediate relations, not 
eveii a sister, only three cousins, and these reside as 
far away as the Himalayas, China, and Japan. In 
the wild state the Lily of the Valley is dispersed all 
over Europe and Russian Asia, from the Mediterra¬ 
nean to the edge of the Arctic circle, though in some 
parts rather sparingly. In Sweden, Linnaeus tells 
us, it is common. It abounds also, according to 
Asa Gray, in the United States, especially upon the 
Alleghanies, from Virginia southwards. Asia does 
not go shares, therefore not Palestine, a circum¬ 
stance important to note, since many people think 
it is the flower intended in the beautiful imagery in 
the Song of Solomon—“ I am the rose of Sharon 
and the lily of the valleys.” But any interpretation 
which takes this particular flower to be the pivot 
and centre of the metaphor is wrong. The word 
‘‘valleys,” it is true, legitimately represents the 
Hebrew "amaquim,” which recurs in the Psalms, 
when we read of the “valleys covered over with 
corn,” and is present also in II. Samuel, xviii. 18, in 
the reference to “the King’s dale.” But this 
counts for nothing. The actual sense of the phrase 
in question we are not here concerned with ; let it 
suffice to repeat that Solomon’s "Lily of the 
Valleys ” and the flower now before us are not to be 
considered identical. 
The current English name is a translation of the 
Latin one bestowed by the famous Continental 
botanists of the early part of the Elizabethan era, 
“ Lilium convallium.” It soon received a corre¬ 
sponding came in Italian, but not in French or 
German, while in England it became the “May 
conval Lily," the appellation preserved by modern 
science in “ Convallaria majalis.” The earliest 
drawing I know of is a rude but accurate woodcut 
in Matthiolus' “ Epitome," printed at Frankfort-on- 
the-Maine in 1576. Excellent coloured pictures will 
be ’found in Redoute’s " Liliacees,” pi. 227, and in 
Reichenbach’s “ Flora Germanica,” pi. 432. 
The natural habitats of the plant are combes, 
retired doughs, sylvan recesses, and shady woods, 
especially such as slope towards running water. 
Hence, as would be anticipated, it finds a happy 
home in the seclusion of the Vall’ombrosa, in the 
Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs, by 
A. D. Webster. A valuable guide to planters of beautiful 
trees and shrubs for the adornment of parks and gardens. 
Price, 3s ; post free, 3s. 3d. Publisher, Gardening World, 
1, Clement's Inn, Strand, London, W.C, 
