724 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
July 15, 1893. 
FLORICULTURE. 
Miniature Violas from Heatherslaw. 
Great zeal still continues to be displayed by the 
raisers of new miniature, as well as the larger rayless 
type of Violas. We have just received a box of 
blooms from Mr. George Steel, of £tal, Corn- 
hill-on-Tweed, and all, with one exception, of the 
miniature type. The exception is a nearly uniform 
deep primrose-yellow variety named George Lord, 
which we should describe as roundly oval in form, 
and certainly very choice. Mr. Steel says it is 
perhaps the best of the large flowering types. The 
petals are all very broad, even including the lip, 
while on the other hand, that organ is comparatively 
narrow in many of the miniature types. What we 
chiefly object to is when the lip is of great width, 
but so short as to make the flower as round as the 
ideal of a self-coloured Pansy. Happily we have not 
seen that type exactly represented amongst Violas, 
for Countess of Hopetounand Sylvia are not strictly 
round. 
A variety named Steeli will associate the raiser's 
name with the miniature type. The flowers are 
obovate, with a yellow lip edged white, and the other 
four petals are shaded with primrose-yellow, but 
vanishing on the upper third. A very pretty yellow 
is Beauty of Heatherslaw, with roundly obovate and 
a broader lip than usually occurs in the miniature 
It is now pretty well known that Ardwell Gem has 
given rise by sporting to several very beautiful 
varieties, named respectively Duchess of Fife, Gold¬ 
finch, and White Duchess, all more or less marked 
with varying shades of blue or mauve at the edges. 
In a collection of Violas in a Surrey garden a plant 
of Duchess of Fife produced a shoot bearing'flowers 
identical with Goldfinch. Another plant produced 
flowers the four upper petals of which were heavily 
clouded with bright mauve or blue almost to the 
base, overlying the usual white ground. This latter 
will probably not prove constant. A plant of Gold¬ 
finch gave rise to a vigorous shoot bearing flowers, 
the upper two petals of which were wholly of a 
slaty-mauve, whiie the three low^-r had a brassy 
sheen, the result of blue and yellow mixed. All 
these sports would seem to prove that Ardwell Gem 
was originally a hybrid between a yellow and a blue 
species, such as Viola cornuta and V. tricolor lutea. 
Seeds are rarely produced by Ardwell Gem, but 
when produced they give rise to varieties of blue 
and pale yellow shades, and sometimes to varieties 
of a slaty-mauve like the sport from Goldfinch. All 
this would indicate the separation of already mixed 
colours. 
A similar series of sports and variations has arisen 
from York and Lancaster and the old bedding Pansy 
Lucy Ashton. Columbine is a pale sport from the 
latter, but it has behaved in a remarkable manner 
this summer in various gardens. In one case it has 
GLOXINIAS. 
'Twelve months ago, July gth, 1892, we gave an 
illustration of an admirably flowered Gloxinia grown 
by Dr. Slater, of Lytham, an amatfur who has been 
exceedingly successful in the management of there 
strikingly beautiful plants. On June 26th last Dr. 
Slater kindly sent us another photograph represent¬ 
ing the the current season’s growths, which we have 
had reproduced, though we are fain to confess the 
process is not such a success as we could desire. 
Some of the plants. Dr. Slater informs us, have 
borne about 200 blooms each, and as many as 150 
blooms have been open on a plant at one time. Our 
correspondent’s mode of treatment is a very intelli¬ 
gent one, and may be summarised in a few words. 
He raises a batch of seedlings every year, sowing on 
the 1st of January, and grows the plants on until 
they produce one flower to prove their quality. The 
useless ones are weeded out, and the selected seed¬ 
lings then ripened off, the tubers being stored away 
in old biscuit tins with dry sea sand. They com¬ 
mence growing again about Christmas, and are then 
set out in shallow boxes placed in the greenhouse, 
and occasionally syringed. When roots begin to 
appear the tubers are potted, lightly, in a compost 
of sea sand, leaf-soil, old manure from an exhausted 
hot-bed, good loam, and a little of the dust shaken 
out of Orchid peat. They want attentive watering, 
but the foliage should never be wet, and as the sun 
Dr. Slater's Gloxinia House. 
type. The lip is just a shade darker than the other 
petals. Picey or Pixy is a creamy-white, with a 
narrow picotee edge, and a small yellow eye, quite 
rayless. Another good flower is Model, but it is 
washed with a light sulphur-yellow, though the shape 
is all that could be desired. A charming little 
flower is Ethel Horsfall, of a delicate lilac, with deeper 
branching veins, and something in the way of Blush 
Queen, but quite distinct in shade. The lip was 
somewhat twisted, but this might be accidental to 
the individual bloom. Fascination is in the way of 
Jeannie Turnbull, but the blue is several shades 
darker, and the warm mauve blue extending from 
the margin inwards is more or less broken by white 
lines. As a fancy, particoloured flower it is certainly 
pretty, and of the true, rayless type. We are pleased 
to record progress in colour and form, but we are 
unable to say anything of the habit of the plants, 
although we may well leave that to the judgement of 
Mr. Steel. 
Variation in Violas 
Those who have watched the numerous varieties of 
Violas with a moderate amount of attentiveness 
cannot have failed to perceive the great variation in 
colour which they have exhibited at different times 
during the course of the long continued drought. 
This variation may have been greatest in the 
southern counties of England, but collections from 
Scotland also show that they vary in that part 
of the country, with more intensified colours. But 
this is also the case to a greater or less extent in the 
south in different soils and under, it may be, different 
conditions as to cultural treatment. 
developed flowers as dark as those of Lucy Ashton. 
Another plant in the same garden has produced dark 
plum purple flowers, and what should be a white 
centre is shaded with blue. In other gardens the 
rosy-purple banding has faded to a pale pink. York 
and Lancaster varies in the same way, except that 
the flowers are striped with two shades of colour. 
Another variety showing a remarkable amount of 
variation is the beautifully soft rose-coloured William 
Neil. In the Surrey garden they have become 
intensified to a deep almost purple rose and die off 
while still of a dark hue. In ordinary seasons they 
are light rose and fade to the palest pink with age. 
The flowers in a Sussex garden, upon rather heavy 
clay soil, became almost unrecognisable except to 
those who are thoroughly acquainted with the 
variety, by changing to the palest pink or almost 
blush white, even when quite young and fresh. 
Vernon Lee varies to a less extent in the upper 
petals, which are usually characterist d by a large 
mahogany blotch with a vellov margin of grea’er or 
less width. N iw in different ptrts of the same 
garden may be seen the usual type, as well as plants 
with tne upper petals wholly of a brown mahogany. 
The latter are from plants raised from cuttings in 
the autumn, while the rest are old plants. Ariel 
should have the upper petals of a bright sky blue, 
but they vary by boing splashed, and sometimes pass 
almost to white in the same garden. Blue Cloud 
and Skylark lose their blue edges; Countess of 
Hopetoun becomes rayed in the centre where no 
rays should be ; and the lavender Duchess of Suther¬ 
land bee >mes striped with white in the Sussex 
garden, evidently as a result of heat, drought, and 
the nature of the soil. 
gets strong they want a little shade. Dr. Slater 
thins out the foliage in the centre of the plants, 
which permits of the development of well-shaped 
specimens, and allows the handsome flowers to form 
a neat head. No tubers are kept beyond the third 
year. 
-- 
A BLUE HIPPEASTRUM. 
Had this been one of the improved garden varieties 
with the widely open flowers characteristic of that 
class, it would have been the sensation of the season, 
because any real shade of blue in that class would 
be welcome, inasmuch as there would be reasonable 
hope of improving it. Hippeastrum procerum is 
the piant referred to, a species introduced from 
Brazil, near Petrop >lis, about 1S63. apparently to 
some Continental garden. It has now found its way 
to Kew, where it is flowering in the succulent house. 
It is described as having from four to twelve lilac 
flowers on a scape. The larger figure would possibly 
be exceptional, as the plant now in bloom has five 
large flowers, the segments of which measure fully 
4! in. long, but are so nearly erect as to give the 
flower a narrow appearance. The tube is extremely 
short, and if hybridists could effect a union between 
it and some of the large flowers of the present day, 
it would probvbly not be difficult to spread out the 
segments and give them breadth. 
The bulbs have a neck about 12 in. to 16 in. long, 
and covered with brown sheaths. The leaves at the 
time of flowering are about the same length, two 
ranked, falcate, glaucous, and firm in texture, but 
