5.0 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
June 13, 1903. 
plant is the purple bands and blotches upon the leaves, but 
although characteristic of T. Greigii, these may also he want¬ 
ing. The same thing happens also with T. micheliana, which 
we figured on page 449. As garden flowers both of the above 
are certainly worthy of extended cultivation. 
The Best Flowering Plants at Kew. 
“ There are more plants in the garden than ye wot of. 
Phaius (Thunia) albus. 
Though scarcely as ornate as species mentioned in previous 
issues, yet it possesses sufficient beauty and distinctiveness to 
merit inclusion in this category ; a caulescent species, with 
rather remote oblong leaves, having sheathing bases clothing 
the entire stem. Apparently, from the sheathing base of an 
upper leaf arises a slightly nutant raceme of six to eight deli¬ 
cate flowers, each having spreading petals and sepals and an 
oblong convolute lip, having a spreading apex and wavy 
margin. With the exception of a few dark purple lines on 
the disc, the flower is delicate white in colour. 
Vanda teres. 
This gem of probably the most attractive genus in Orehidae 
amply repays the cultivator for the tender and careful atten¬ 
tion it requires. The flower spike, bearing a raceme of about 
seven flowers, each upwards of 4 in. across, arises opposite 
one of the green terete leaves. The oblong-obtuse petals, 
much broader than the sepals, are of a soft rose colour with a 
paler border, whilst the three-1 obed lip has a yellow disc veined 
reddish crimson and a rosy purple margin. Native of N. 
India. 
Posoqueria longiflora. 
, This species, known in French Guiana as “ Aymaea poso- 
queri,” forms a medium-sized ornamental stove shrub, valu¬ 
able as a specimen plant. The genus is peculiar to tropical 
America, and all its species flourish under conditions similar 
to those required for Gardenias. It is of a freely-branched 
habit, glabrous, producing large oblong leaves having pointed 
bases. The chaste, waxy white, fragrant flowers are borne 
in corymbs of from six to twelve, each flower possessing a 
cylindrical tube 6 in. long, and a short, spreading limb, 
^ibonchina heteromala (Syn. Pleroma heteromala). 
A semiscandent shrub adapted for trained specimens or 
climbing warm greenhouse plants, which, when in flower, are 
very distinct, by reason of the pure, intense colour of their 
flowers. The branches, clothed with ovate-cordate leaves, 
beset on the under surface with flocky wool, are terminated 
by trichotomously-branched panicles of medium-sized flowers. 
Single-stemmed plants, about 18 in. high, suitable subjects 
for massing on side stages. Native of Brazil. 
Bougainvillea spectablis (Syns. B. speciosa and B. brasiliensis) 
Unfortunately this very handsome species cannot be com¬ 
pared with B. glabra and its var. sanderiana in floriferousness, 
but its vastly superior colour renders it a desirable subject, 
especially for those who require material for tracing on dinner- 
tables, where its ovate-cordate, purple-rose bracts would be> 
effective. Native of Brazil, 
Ranunculus cortusaefolius. 
A handsome, large-sized species, nearly hardy, of the Butter¬ 
cup family. A herbaceous plant, fully 2-| ft. high, having 
large radical, loved leaves, on long petioles, and stem ones 
nearly sessile. The whole plant is slightly pilose, and termi¬ 
nates in a. many-flowered branching corymb of showy yellow 
flowers, having the shining upper surface of the petals so 
characteristic of the Buttercup. Native of Teneriffe. 
Rhododendron Edgeworthii. 
A greenhouse species particularly noticeable for its 
straggling habit and for the dense coating of a rusty-coloured, 
felt-like substance clothing the slender stems and under-sur¬ 
face of the leaves. The flowers are fragrant, ful y 3| in. across 
and 2J in, deep, having a contracted throat and a curved tube, 
due to the prominence of the posterior nectary. A yellow 
blotch surrounding this nectary is the only deviation from 
its otherwise pure white colour. Native of Himalaya. 
Trillium grandiflorum, “Wake Robin.” 
An interesting and showy plant, eminently suited for moist 
declivities in the rock garden, where for some time it has been 
a conspicuous object. Its solitary stem, rising to a height of 
12 in., has near its apex a whorl of sessile leaves, and terminates 
in an apical flower 2 in. across, borne on a short peduncle, and 
pure white, with age becoming slightly rose-tinted. 
Ceanothus veitchianus. 
A magnificent species, closely allied o papillous, floribundus, 
and lobbianus, but it is distinguished from them by the 
character of its foliage, and surpasses them all in the abundance 
of its mazarine blue flowers. Upon the glossy, varnished sur¬ 
face of its foliage and the glabrousness of its branchlets its 
identification in a measure depends. It forms a branching 
shrub, requiring the protection of a wall, producing numerous 
toothed leaves, each tooth ending in a gland, and heads of 
flowers lin. to 3in. long. Native of California. 
The “ Struggle for Existence ” among 
Offspring. 
The perversion in terms by those who discover a “pitiless 
series of pitched battles ” in evolution is well exposed by Mr. 
J. Collier in the June issue of “ Knowledge.” He remarks 
that “ the words used to name these facts are in good part 
answerable for the perversion. An eminent Russian sociolo¬ 
gist, Mr. James Novikoff, has written a book saturated with 
Darwinian conceptions rightly understood and generously 
applied, and yet pervaded by the same prepossession of an 
omnipresent battle. 
“ W. Roux and E. Metchnikoff describe the battle for exist¬ 
ence between the different parts of the organism. La lutte, 
der Kanipf, battle, war, and even ' the struggle for existence ’ 
seem to err by diffusing over the whole the accidental com¬ 
plexion of a part. War in all its phases is a pathological 
phenomenon like a surgical operation, a collision at sea, or an 
explosion in a chemical works. Ninety-nine hundredths of the 
normal processes of nature are of a wholly" different character. 
.The myriad dance of the atoms, molecular cohesion, attraction 
of gravity, chemical affinity, biological assimilation, and socio¬ 
logical union are different forms of the same fact. War con¬ 
sists in the comparatively rare collisions that mark the passage 
to these ends ; the real struggle consists in the effort made by- 
individuals or societies to overcome obstacles to put forth all 
their powers, to shape new products, to realise themselves. 
Conflict with others is a mere incident of the real battle. War 
is not the type of social effort; it is the action of society in a 
state of disease. 
“ A Danish naturalist has ascertained the tactics of the 
battle. The Birch is in possession of a tract. Its branches are 
open and let down the sunshine to its base, where the Beech 
strikes root in the humus formed by the decomposition of 
Birch leaves. The Beech grows up, and, being longer lived, it 
survives and prevails over the Birch, whose seeds can effect 
no lodgment under the dense shadow of the Beech. Only in 
sterile or sandy tracts, by lakes or in marshy soil, can the 
Birch hold its ground. We perceive in what the battle, the 
victory, and the defeat consist. No single Birch perishes till 
its time is come, but it leaves fewer and fewer offspring, and 
it fattens the soil for its supplanter. No tree has been driven 
out of its habitat; those that survive in inhospitable spots 
have been there from the first. It is battle by T elimination, 
victory by supplanting, defeat by disappearance. The vegetal 
elimination thus described is the type of all substitution of one 
species for another. 
