THE GARDENING WORLD 
March 6, 1897. 
422 
THE AMARYLLIS. 
Before these remarks are in print most growers of 
these valuable bulbs will have started them, by 
repotting or top dressing, and placing them in a 
warm house and giving them a little bottom-heat, 
the latter being a great assistance to them, until they 
come into flower (at any rate) or longer, if possible. 
What prompts me to write about them mostly is how 
seldom do we find them flowering in our houses dur¬ 
ing November and December, a time when none will 
deny they would be of very great service from a 
decorative point of view. Nevertheless, it is a very 
simple matter to have them in flower in the months 
mentioned above. Of course, the bulbs must be of 
flowering size. 
We will presume that the general batch of bulbs has 
been overhauled early in January (ihe month generally 
advocated by one of our noted growers for some few 
years past). These plants are generally kept growing 
and well attended to until early in August, when the 
supply of water is gradually lessened, and eventually 
withheld altogether when the foliage shows signs of 
the bulb having done growing for that season. It is 
by starting a batch of those which look most promis¬ 
ing a month earlier than usually done, fo r two 
seasons, which would make it early in November, 
next autumn twelve months. So treated, those, or 
the majority of them should be in flower before, and 
quite by, Christmas. What finer or bolder subjects 
can you have than these noble flowers for home or 
church decoration to mix with that always required 
Lily, Richardia africana, at this festive season, on 
the plant or ia a cut state ? I had a few in flower 
by the end of October, and have not been without a 
greater or less number since that date. I start a few 
at a time at short in’ervals, which is more useful 
than having a quantity in bloom all at one time, 
unless you have a special object in view, and require 
a good show at a given date. 
Some of my strongest bulbs have thrown up two 
spikes, having three and five flowers respectively, but 
usually one spike is a week or ten days in advance of 
the other. Mine are grown with the Cucumbers and 
Meloos in a temperature very little below 70° at 
night — too warm some will say, no doubt, but this is 
the only avai'able pi me I have that commands 
bottom heat, and am well satisfied with the results; 
and that is everything. I do not make a point of 
repotting every bulb each year ; I have them knocked 
out of their pots and examined, and if the roots are 
not too thickly packed, or crowding too much I let 
them stand over until another year with a top dress¬ 
ing. These, I may say, are more liberally fed with a 
stimulant than the newly potted bulbs. The com¬ 
post I use is three parts loam to one of peat and leaf 
soil, with plenty of river sand and a layer of soot 
over the drainage.— J. Mayne. 
--— 
PEOPLE I HAVE MET. 
Mr Oliver Pilling. 
A chamFion Yorkshire cottage gardener and veget¬ 
able exhibitor, Mr. Oliver Pilling, Elland, is indeed 
a household word amongst the gardening paternity, 
and at many horticultural exhibitions in the districts 
of the West Riding, Yorksh're. Nor is there anyone 
more to be feared by intending competitors in the 
cottage classes. No wonder ; for there needs be 
some worthy, spirited opponents to tackle and stage 
against him. They will have to be vegetable 
“ Rollands ” to outdo an "Oliver" in the many 
splendid exhibits he invariably puts up. 
No one, who has not had the opportunity of view¬ 
ing, or criticising his trays, single dishes, and pro¬ 
ductions, would realise what can be shown and done 
under crippled and adverse circumstances, wherein 
the artisans of our manufacturing towns and centres 
labour. Often I have stood aghast, either in the 
capacity of a judge or " curating,” at the energy, 
perseverance, and indomitable pluck shown, with 
such marked results. 
It was not until the year 1890 Mr. Pilling deter¬ 
mined to compete in another way, viz., for the 
Messrs. Carters’ yearly cash prizes. He has now so 
far taken the premier honours for seven consecutive 
seasons, with the following results ; —1890, 119 
prizes; iSgi, 143 prizes; 1892, 197 prizes; 1893, 
134 prizes ; 1804, 124 prizes ; 1895, 207 prizes ; and 
1896, 231 prizes, respectively 3 or a grand total of 
1,155. Such a record is well worthy of the highest 
emulation. 
What a delight it is to visit the allotment gardens 
at Elland, during the summer’s eve or morn, when 
all is "a glowing and a blowing” with animation 
and industry, to have a chat with the workers, and 
may be give, ay, and take a “ wrinkle ” from them, 
and be none the worse for it " Ah ! ” remarked an 
allotment holder, " Oliver be up soin, a morn, afore 
Mr. Oliver Pilling. 
he goas to his wark and lat’ at neet, when 'e’s left off 
wark ; alus in’t garding. But I watch ’im ; it’s ’is 
waistcoit pockit mun, wher’ secreets is." Well, I 
retorted, there may be something in that ; but it 
appears to me to be as much in the head and hands. 
" Waistcoat pocket ” certainly was a poser to me, 
for I really suspected there were secrets of decom¬ 
position about when sniffing the air. " Ah," says 
my interpolator, giving me a nudge, " there you be, 
that’s claret o’loime—fine thing for blanching 
Celery, that is, just give a slight sprinkling of it on 
the surface of the soil, mind, not too much.” 
I was perfectly aware that chloride of lime was an 
excellent ingredient for destroying algae, slime, and 
chlorophyll, but confessed I did not know its useful¬ 
ness for blanching Celery. 
However, that may be, Mr. Pdling’s chief forte is 
Celery, Pea3, and Cucumbers. The last named are 
splendid examples of cultural skill for length, body, 
symmetry, and evenness in shape, are perfect models, 
and locally termed “ Pilling’s variety."— B. Lockwood, 
Lindley. 
-- — 
(patting* £$>odt» 
of Science 
Wren's Nest in the Body of a Rook —At a meet¬ 
ing of the Linnean Society of London, on February 
18th, Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S , vice-president, in the 
chair, Mr. J. E. Harting exhibited under a glass ca-e 
the nest of a wren built of moss in the dried body of 
a rook which had been hung uo as a scare-crow in 
Gloucestershire. Similar instances of the kind had 
been recorded (Essex Nat. ii. 205 & iii. 25). He 
called to mind the nest of a swallow in the dead body 
of an owl mentioned by Gilbert White, and referred 
to other cases which had been collected by a former 
president of the society (Bishop Stanley, Hist. 
Birds). For instances of nests of the hoopoe placed 
in the desiccated bodies of unburied men, he referred 
to the experience of Pallas in Russia, and of Swinhoe 
in China. 
Morphology and Anatomy of Water Lilies. — 
-At the same meeting as the above, on behalf of Mr. 
D. T. Gwynne Vaughan, Dr. D. H. Scott gave the 
substance of a paper on the Morphology and 
Anatomy of certain Nymphaeaceae. Dealing first 
with the embryonic leaves, he showed by the aid of 
lantern-slides a series of transitional forms between 
the earliest leaf, which is acicular, and those of the 
mature plant. As regards the vascular system, the 
whole central region of the rhizome in Victoria regia 
was shown to be permeated by a number of separate 
bundles irregularly anastomosing; the more peri¬ 
pheral bundles appearing to be arranged in a definite 
manner, forming a limiting zone, the outermost 
phloem-strands of which not not run in a vertical but 
in an obliquely horizontal direction. In Nymphaea 
and other genera, the vascular system is not limited 
by such a peripheral zone. Nothing corresponding 
to a plerome could be distinguished in the apex of the 
mature rhizome of Nymphaea or of the floating 
shoots of Cabomba aquatica. In those species of 
Victoria, Nymphaea, and Nuphar which were 
examined, and also in Cabomba aquatica and 
Nelumbium speciosum, the adventitious roots 
do not arise indiscriminately upon the vascular 
bundles scattered in the ground-tissue of the rhizome, 
but are borne upon some which appear to be 
specially set apart for that purpose, and form a 
structure essentially similar to a stele, which reaches 
the greatest perfection in Victoria regia. In species 
of Nymphaea which produce many rcols at each 
leaf-base the root-bearing stele is perfectly con¬ 
stituted, but in others, and in Nuphar, the vascular 
bundles are few in number, and are not arranged 
with sufficient regularity to constitute a stele, 
although they bear exclusively the adventitious roots. 
In Nelumbium speciosum the seedling was shown to 
be remarkable on account of the complete abortion of 
the primary root, and also on account of the ccm- 
p’exity exhibited by the vascular system in the 
earliest or epicotyledonary internode. The rhizomes 
of Nymphaea flava and N. tuberosa bear a number 
of small tubers on stalks or stolons, of varying 
length, wherein the vascular system exhibits a poly- 
stelic arrangement, the bundles are grouped around 
three to five different centres to form so many steles 
consisting of three or four bundles each. When the 
tubers which are borne at the ends of these primary 
stolons germinate, they give rise to a number of 
narrow secondary stolons which in turn produce 
new rhizomes at their extremities. On these and 
other points of interest, as demonstrated by Dr. 
Scott, a discussion took place in which Messrs. C. B. 
Clarke, A. W. Bennett, G. Murray, and Prof. J. B 
Farmer took part; Dr. Scett replying to the 
criticisms. 
Adhesive discs of Ercilla.—Mr. J. H. Burrage 
read a paper on the adhesive discs of Ercilla spicata, 
Moq. He showed, with the aid of lantern-slide?, 
that the adhesive organs were developed endo¬ 
genously immediately above the axils of the leaves, 
and that each was made up of a mass of parenchyma 
with a central plate of tracheids in connection with 
the bundles of the stem at the base of the disc. It 
appeared also that hairs which force their way into the 
crevices of the support are formed from a special 
layer of columnar cells beneath the epidermis, result¬ 
ing in the exfoliation of the latter. After a time the 
walls of the cells in the external layers of the discs 
become suberized, a periderm being eventually 
formed from a definite cambium just outside the 
vascular plate. It was further shown that while 
absolute contact was necessary for complete develop¬ 
ment, discs of various sizes might occur some dis¬ 
tance from the support, possibly stimulated to 
growth by a moist environment. It was found that 
a few discs gave rise to small roots, and as the walls 
of the cortical cells were invariably suberized, they 
could not act fn a normal manner. While there was 
no evidence to show that they were anything but 
climbing organs, a comparison with parasitic suckers, 
such as those of Cuscuta, suggested the possibility 
that the discs were not far removed from acting 
parasitically. The paper was criticised by Prof. 
Farmer and Dr. D. H. Scott. 
-- 
ORCHID NOTES & GLEANINGS, 
By The Editor. 
Dendrobium rubens.—This beautiful hybrid was 
raised from D. leechianum, itself a hybrid closely 
allied to the well-known D. Ainsworthii, crossed with 
the pollen of D. nobile nobilius. As might have 
been expected, it bears a close resemblance to the 
seed parent, but more, in fact, than the other parent 
would warrant, considering its rich colouration. It 
seems, however, that D. Ainsworthii and D. leechia¬ 
num, both strongly influence the character of the 
progeny. D. rubens has white sepals and petals, 
tipped, and more distinctly flushed with purple than 
