May 28, 1898. f HE GARDENING tVORLfi. 
William Ewart Gladstone.—Born at Liverpool on 
December 29th, 1809, and dying at Hawarden on May, 
19th, 1898, the great statesman who has just passed 
away was in his eighty-ninth year. He entered 
Parliament at the age of twenty-three and served 
his country for nearly seventy years. The brilliancy 
of his Parliamentary career will never be forgotten ; 
but amidst his incessant energy over a wide and 
varied field the domain of horticulture was not by 
any means beneath his do ice, nor neglected by him. 
As a woodsman it is well known that he possessed 
great skill, and on occasion did not disdain to wield 
the axe himself. On many occasions he has 
delivered lengthy speeches to large and delighted 
audiences on the subject of horticulture and fruit¬ 
growing for jam-making and other commercial 
purposes, and no doubt a large number of his 
countrymen profited by his encouragement. The 
annual flower show at Hawarden was opened by him 
on many occasions, and his leDgthy speeches on 
gardening and kindred matters were listened to with 
wrapt attention, 
Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, —At a 
meeting of the council held in Edinburgh on May 
18th, the " Neill prize ” was awarded to Mr. Thomas 
Lunt, gardener, Ardgowan. A fund was bequeathed 
to the society in 1851 by Mr. Patrick Fraser, LL.D., 
who had for many years acted as secretary, for the 
purpose of the interest being applied in furnishing a 
medal or other reward every second or third year to 
a distinguished Scottish botanist or cultivator. Part 
of the prize must be expended on plate or books 
bearing a suitable inscription. Amongst those to 
whom the prize has been awarded are the following : 
Mr. James McNab, Curator of the Royal Botanic 
Garden, Edinburgh ; Professor Balfour, Edinburgh ; 
William Thompson, gardener, Dalkeith Park ; John 
Webster, gardener, Gordon Castle ; David Thomson, 
gardener, Drumlanrig; Isaac Anderson Hendry, of 
Woodend ; William Young, Assistant Secretary of 
Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society; Malcolm 
Dunn, Dalkeith Palace Gardens ; Professor Bayley 
Balfour, Edinburgh ; Alexander Kirk, Alloa ; Robert 
Lindsay, late Curator Royal Botanic Garden, Edin¬ 
burgh. 
-4.- 
CALCEOLARIAS AT READING. 
At the Portland Road Nurseries of Messrs. Sutton 
& Sons, Reading, a long, span-roofed house, in three 
divisions, is filled from end to end with Calceolarias 
in the full blaze of bloom. The seed was sown last 
June, so that the plants are scarcely twelve months 
old. They are grown in 10-in. pots, stood on fine 
river gravel from the bed of the Thames, spread 
over the corrugated iron benches. The plants are 
remarkably dwarf, say about 12 in, above the surface 
of the pots, and form spreading, flat-topped masses 
of bloom, entirely concealing the foliage, except at 
the base. The tall plants that were at one time 
grown here have been reduced in stature, and the 
flowers enlarged, so that the strain has now reached 
that state of perfection which makes it difficult to 
see where or in what direction they can be further im¬ 
proved. The flowers may be compared to great inflated 
boxing gloves, or large Strawberries of the flattened or 
compressed types. A few blooms are distinctly 
heart-shaped, being prolonged into a short, rounded 
point in front. They have entirely lost the old 
elongated and slipper form. On the whole, however, 
they are comparatively uniform in shape, but most 
diversified in colour, no two scarcely being exactly 
alike, except the self-coloured varieties. 
The standard of merit from a packet of seed is so 
high that little attempt is made at naming varieties, 
except in the case of Cloth of Gold, a beautiful 
golden-yellow variety which has been perpetuated 
true from seed for many years. Like the rest of 
them, it is now dwarf, and the flowers enlarged. The 
mildness of the past winter, and the light, airy 
character of the frames and houses are conducive to 
this result. Being always near the glass, abundantly 
ventilated, and kept cool and moist by the wet 
gravel beneath them, and otherwise well attended to, 
have combined to produce the plants which visitors 
cannot but admire. No finer decorative plants could 
be placed in the conservatory at this season of the 
year ; yet there is nothing to prevent any gardener 
from pursuing the same methods, and obtaining 
similar results, provided he has a suitable house of 
the required dimensions for accommodating his 
plants after they have to be removed from the 
frames which sheltered them during summer and 
autumn. 
To adequately describe the colours would be a 
difficult task, for they range from the darkest 
maroon-crimson to the lightest cream, the markings 
of the spotted sorts being intrica te and hieroglyphical. 
Amongst the seifs are crimson, maroon-crimson, 
golden-yellow, soft yellow, and primrose, fading to 
creamy-white. A plum-coloured sort is shaded 
with rose in front. Many resemble pastry or con¬ 
fectionery, one type of the former being crimson 
above and citron beneath, as if it had a cap of 
chocolate., Others are blackish-crimson, crimson, 
and rosy-red with a few yellow spots. Bronzy or 
coppery varieties are thinly spotted with crimson. 
Very handsome are the crimson flowers marbled 
with gold, others akin to them being marbled with 
crimson and yellow in about equal proportions. The 
creamy-yellow and creamy-white sorts mottled with 
purple or crimson are also chastely pretty in their 
soft hues. 
Other golden grounds are marbled with golden- 
brown and maroon-crimson hieroglyphical mark¬ 
ings. A most remarkable development of this 
occurs where the golden ground is marbled with 
massive blotches of hieroglyptr'eal forms, in two 
shades of crimson, dark spots being studded over the 
lighter blotches. It is, perhaps, impossible to 
account for the peculiar form the markings lake, 
but something akin to it occurs in certain species of 
Stanhopea. Other shades of colour are salmon 
mottled with crimson ; salmon shaded pink-cerise, 
and spotted ci imson ; cerise and crimson, spotted 
with gold; and pinkish-heliotrope and cream. A 
great curiosity in its way is a tricolor with crimson, 
rose, and pink flakes on a yellow ground, recalling 
what occurs in the flaked and mottled flowers of the 
florists’ types of Antirrhinum belonging to the same 
family as the Calceolaria. In the way of spotted, 
marbled, and variegated flowers nothing can match 
this class of plants for cool conservatory work. The 
quaint form of the inflated pouch or lip has nothing 
comparable to it in the wide domain of cultivated 
flowers, the work of nature having been developed or 
evolved in a way that redounds to the credit of the 
hybridist and cultivator. 
-4.- 
TUBEROUS BEGONIAS. 
There has been so much written respecting this 
charming and valuable class of plant that I always 
approach the subject with a certain amount of diffi¬ 
dence. The facts of the case respecting both the im¬ 
provements effected among them and the magnitude 
to which the culture of them has attained are most 
startling. It seems but as yesterday that they were 
in their infancy, and now the little one has become a 
thousand. The leading nurserymen were proud to 
show a stock of a few hundreds, and now the stocks 
run up to hundreds of thousands. Messrs. Laing’s 
nurseries are crammed with them just now, this 
year’s seedlings being reckoned at a quarter of a 
million ; and whilst the quantity grown is on the 
increase the quality still improves both as respects 
size and form of flower. The advance made among the 
doubles places them in the first rank of decorative 
flowering plants, either in the conservatory or flower 
garden. As bedding plants they have a great future 
before them, making a great display of colour. The 
erect stemmed ones of dwarf habit should be 
selected for this purpose. I took particular notice of 
the following :—Duke of Fife, rosy salmon, very 
large double flowers, erect ; Duchess of Northumber¬ 
land, bright salmon, extra large flowers ; Dr. Nansen, 
single, large'salmon-scarlet; Brittania, single, golden 
bronze; Countess of Pembroke, single, charming 
pink; Lady E. Smith, single, cerise and white, very 
distinct ; Lady Plowden, single, a superb white; 
Countess of Dudley, double, creamy white, fringed 
petals ; Lady Dunsary, double, pink ; Lady Ampthi 1 , 
single, splendid salmon, fine habit; Mrs. Arnold, 
single, yellow, first rate; and Fringed White, single. 
Almost ever}' shade of colour can now be obtained 
among Begonias except blue. At the same time I 
noticed one which is a near approach to purple.—• 
W. B. G. 
Acalyfha Sanderi (See p, 619). 
