148 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
November 5, 1895. 
FkORICUliTUSE. 
Auriculas. 
It is only an accident, common to seedling plants of 
all kinds, and no peculiar weakness in those of the 
Auricula, that some we love die young. There are 
delicate constitutions that no culture can invigorate ; 
hence no grower is ashamed to own to losses which 
all his care could not prevent. 
As to the question what effect decapitation would 
have upon shy seedlings that will not, breed, it is 
well known that usually there are dormant eyes 
which the stimulus of having no head above, and 
some healthy roots below, will force into growth. 
But the seedlings I alluded to, as being unprolific 
for years, were those that form no eyes upon the 
stem that can be induced to break—though I have 
done what I could, short of risking the life of the 
plant. 
To a beginner, "decapitation” may be rather a 
severe and misconstructible term. If it is desirable 
that the head should live, it must not be cut out of 
the foliage like the heart of a cabbage, for there 
would ihen be no neck left ripe enough to root. But 
if the operation means cutting off the top of the 
plant below all the leaves, and a few vigorous main 
roots, then it amounts to little more than the cus¬ 
tomary practice at repotting time, which is rather a 
cutting off of tails than heads, the plants being started 
afresh, with only the last twelve months length of 
stem, which will include all the most active parts. 
I am sorry that there is yet another misconception 
of “ R. D." as to the ways and means of the Auricula. 
" If we cannot distribute offsets of new seedlings, 
will we not shed abroad our best new seeds ? ” 
We are asked to consider the fat packets of choice 
Carnation seed, and the generous distribution 
thereof, while we are keeping Auricula seed papers 
full of possible treasure much to be desired, and 
that might be shared. 
Let me show how far such comparison holds 
good, and the vanity of it ! In no one season have 
I been able to save more Auricula seed than could 
be piled upon a shilling. All my seed of 1891 would 
have lain upon a sixpence. The seed of 1892 would 
barely have covered the face of a threepennybit. 
Where is the spare packet ? 
Mr. Simonite's corresponding harvests have been 
even less than mine. For obvious reasons we have 
set for seed only our very best flowers ; we want 
quality before quantity, and have often had no 
returns. With every care and advantage, Auricula 
seed will be ever an uncertain crop. I mean seed of 
high parentage. 
In successful years, and otherwise, the pains taken 
may have been just the same, but results are irregu¬ 
lar, sometimes past accounting for. 
Some varieties are most difficult to obtain seed 
from ; and in them all, the organs of reproduction 
seem very susceptible to injury and checks for a plant 
that is so hardy. 
No one, I may assure “ R. D.,” should be unable 
to save Auricula seed while Mr. Simonite can. I 
doubt if anyone has disadvantages equal to his in 
the very town of dark, and dewless, sulphureous 
Sheffield—or if anyone has more than the equivalent 
of the otherwise occupied time that he has. 
We both have a good deal more to do with flowers 
than the growing of Auriculas. Then April days are 
long !—sunrise before five, sunset after seven, and 
the side-lights late and early. 
The flowers of the Auricula are not like the herds¬ 
man's " incerta vacca ,” nor even as the Carnation 
blossom, in which the anthers of the day have lost 
their pollen by the sun is high. I have fertilised 
Auricula flowers any time between 4 a.m. and 8p.m. t 
and I have done it by candle-light. Can anyone 
never have a few spare minutes in such a glorious 
spread of lenthening daylight for this light work ? 
" R. D. " speaks of an " Auricula ring,” and of " a 
monopoly.” There is neither the one thing nor the 
other. There could only be a monopoly if we had 
patents and injunctions and such-like pleasant and 
inexpensive restrictions against anyone but ourselves 
saving Auricula seed. 
But, as I said before, " there is no chance in rais¬ 
ing seedling Auriculas that has not lain open to all 
growers,” and I have advocated the raising of seed¬ 
lings as a most interesting, and, as it may prove to 
be, the best way of enriching a collection—till other 
new sorts can be had. 
As to certificates I do not care for them, and it is 
long since I presented a plant for one. A good 
Auricula does net need one. Let it speak for itself. 
It will. 
The real " Ring ” I rather think may be considered 
that formed by self-exclusion by those who prefer to 
stand aside from seedling work, or are damped by early 
disappointments, and who either may or may not 
feel troubled because they cannot enter into other 
men's labours. 
The natural difficulties in the way of this are 
called " the vested interest in Auricula culture rear¬ 
ing itself to oppose the general good ” ! Such words 
are at once strong and weak. Some of us raised 
Auricula seedlings when there were no shows to 
show them at, and would continue the work though 
all the shows fell through. " The general good ” in 
" R. D.'s ” estimate is to " let well alone,” and try 
for nothing better. Have as near as possible a level, 
uniform and stagnant. Suppress and tax enterprise. 
Let a man spend years over the improvement of his 
flower, and obtain something fit to carry all before 
it, but stop it more or less of its full honours. 
I say that even such tactics would deter no true 
florist from his pursuit, but this is the first time I 
have heard them spoken of as conducive to the 
general good of either the Auricula or of those that 
take a genuine interest in it. 
“ R. D.” has taken into account neither the 
exigencies of the case with the Auricula, nor what 
is due to superior flowers and the labours of those 
who produced them. He looks to the prizes rather 
than to what wins them. 
Besides all this he writes as though only two or 
three were raising seedlings, and as if these few 
composed that vicious circle “ The Ring.” The fact 
is far otherwise. More and more growers have 
entered upon seedling work, and new seedlings will 
be well-marked features, more successful or less, in 
many collections. 
However, might there not be, as " R. D.” suggests, 
a protected class formed, in which only old sorts 
should compete ? 
Yes! just as in the Royal National Tulip Socjety 
there \yas once an easier Twelve than the Royal 
Twelve Dissimilar. It was contended that for the 
smaller owners a Twelve, from which powerful 
collections would be distincted or diverted, would be 
only a fair protection. So a class demanding only 
nine dissimilar varieties was set up. 
Does “ R. D." know what the result was? This 
—that instead of being sought as a refuge for the 
the weak, it came to being pluckily looked upon as 
an inferior thing ; and that easier class of protected 
Twelves eventually sank or was withdrawn for want 
of interest and support. 
In Tulips, I did not show in Twelves till I could 
face the Twelve Dissimilar. That was the answer 
of the smaller Tulip growers. 
It may be that nothing short of some similar test 
would settle the cognate question as regards 
Auriculas. But nevertheless, in culture of any 
florist flower, the true florist spirit is the same 
throughout; and any protected class will be escaped 
from as soon as possible. This ought so to be. The 
impress of its status should wholesomely affect " all 
who enter here.” Not that they should " all hope 
abandon,” and stay there for ever, but that they 
should long and strive to be in the forefront of the 
battle, even though they cannot at once be in the 
front rank. 
I am sure that some have such thoughts as these 
uppermost in their pursuits of floriculture, and feel 
the pleasure, desire, and instinct, of trying to improve 
their pet flower. Let it not be thought that I am 
adverse to anything that would be for the good of 
the Auricula, and tend to its wider culture ; but I 
cannot too strongly deprecate any attempt to check 
the new seedling in its career of promise. 
And although it is not discouraging, it yet is some¬ 
what curious to feel that we are reading, between 
such lines as ” R. D.'s,” something akin to gloom 
and sadness over the successes of Auricula seedlings. 
The wail is somewhat of a new thing. No distant 
echoes of such a cry have come down to us from other 
days. 
Our fathers rejoiced to see a better thing than the 
best there had been heretofore. They gave it place 
and honour, and got it when they could, " R. D.” ! We 
live in days that, despite all difficulties, are brighter 
in some ways than those were. I have known, even 
of flowers that were in commerce, the names and 
sources of supply denied to the enquirer, and the 
molehills of culture made mountains high. I would 
not say it was the spirit of the age, but that spirit 
was in the age. 
Now am I glad that" the string of adjectives ” fell 
harmless as to " R. D.'s” head. I daresay they 
would, since that was not the object I aimed them 
at; but I did " heave rocks ” —as they term it across 
the " Big Sea-water ”—at a scheme for excluding 
new seedlings from all open competition—and my 
words were as the lightness of pumice stone to 
granite blocks for what such schemes are worthy of. 
There must be new seedlings, and those seedlings 
must rank by their deserts high or low ; and their 
reputation, to be worth anything, must be won 
against all comers new and old. 
Th : nk of the carter and his wheel, although 
" R. D.” maintains that “ there is no evidence to 
prove that he did not try his hardest to get it out of 
the rut before he appealed to the gods for assistance.” 
Why ! there is every evidence to show that he did 
not try beforehand. 
If a push did it after his ungranted prayer, a push 
would have done it before. And he need not have 
prayed at all. Eh ? “R. D." !— F. D. Horner, Burton- 
in-Lonsdale. 
A Blue Carnation. 
The realisation of a blue Carnation, unless it be a 
dyed or stained one, is evidently as far distant as it 
was seventy or eighty years ago, both on the con¬ 
tinent and iD this country. Several amateurs and 
others imported Carnation seed from Germany about 
that time, and one exhibitor showed a batch of 
flowering plants raised from an importation of seed, 
on the 21 st July, 1818, at a meeting of the London 
Horticultural Society. They were chiefly yellow- 
ground Picotees marked with various shades of 
crimson, scarlet, purple, slate, and black. These 
facts show that the modern grey, slate, and heliotrope 
coloured Carnations or Picotees are nothing new. It 
has been remarked by several correspondents that 
there is no real blue in any of these so-called blue 
varieties. The microscope reveals the true state of 
matters as pointed out by Mr. Geo. Chaundy at 
p. 81. The way that Nature dishes up her colours 
has the effect of making things appear different from 
what they really are—to all intents and purposes 
producing an optical delusion. 
I recently examined one of these grey or slate- 
coloured Carnations, and which was variously 
striped or flaked with scarlet. The colours are 
entirely confined to the epidermal cells of both 
surfaces, and which are specially developed for the 
display of colouring pigments. The cells of the 
upper surface are of large size, and ovoid or egg- 
shaped with a broad base, and the upper and bluntly 
pointed end projecting considerably above the 
surface of the petal. The cells of the lower surface 
are also large but more nearly globular, and the 
colours here are less intensified. Those of the 
centre of the petals are small and wholly devoid of 
colour. The scarlet stripes are due to orange-yellow' 
colouring matter diffused throughout the cell sap 
and the other contents. The cell sap of the grey 
portions is in most cases quite clear, though some¬ 
times slightly clouded with pigment. The charac¬ 
teristic appearance is due however to a single large 
pigment corpuscle chromoplastid) at the base of 
the cell, rarely in the middle. Sometimes there are 
two smaller chromoplastids, rarely three of different 
sizes and all smaller than the solitary one. These 
bodies are globular, solid, and of an intense, rich 
purple, but giving the petals a grey or slate colour 
by their being seen through a considerable depth of 
clear cell sap and the colourless cell wall. The 
satiny lustre of these flowers is due to the epidermal 
or pigment cells being elevated in the form of blunt 
cones above the general surface. The velvety gloss 
of the Pansy is due to the same fact.— J. F. 
The National Auricula and Carnation 
Societies. 
The supporters of the Auricula and Carnation 
Societies met at the Horticultural Club on the 26th 
ult., on the occasion of the annual meetings of each. 
Mr. Martin R. Smith presided, and there was a 
small attendance. These two societies are the 
Siamese twins of the horticultural w’orld. They 
coalesce at certain points and are separated at others; 
and, though the business of both is transacted by 
