September 3, 1904. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
697 
he (Jardening\^brld. 
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EDITORIAL NOTES. 
The Flowery Railway Banks. 
Thosie who are in any way interested witn 
ie wild flowers of their own. or any other 
>untry must have no doubt noticed the ex- 
emely flowery character of the railway 
banks in many places while they were being 
whirled along the iron highway. Mr. 
Willard N. Clute, the editor of the “ Ameri¬ 
can Botanist,” ha® been amusing himself in 
this way while passing over a great stretch 
of country in! the United States and Canada. 
While passing through the various geological 
formations he could not help noticing and 
admiring the variety amongst plants or the 
profusion of some one or other species pro¬ 
duced in one portion of the line, while the 
banks would suddenly give place to quite 
another kind of flower, owing to the change 
of the nature of the soils passed through by 
the traveller. He thinks ’that the railways 
do more to preserve the native flora than all 
the plant societies put together. This is 
owing to the fact that the railways are 
neither ploughed, cultivated, nor grazed. 
He bewails the fact that the British custom 
is. to prevent trespassers on the right of way. 
We think, however, even if if were practic¬ 
able, if the public were allowed to stray 
along the railway banks', Hie flowers near all 
populous centres would soon become as 
scanty as by the public highways. The fact 
that such pieces of ground are not cultivated 
does more to render them a. sort of refuge to 
the native plants, than all the other causes 
put together, that is provided such railway 
banks are ait. some little distance from large 
towns. The very fact of land being culti¬ 
vated not only destroys all perennial and 
shrubby vegetation, but. it. alters the char¬ 
acter of the soil, often making it unsuitable 
for anything except the mere weeds of culti¬ 
vation. We perfectly agree with him, how¬ 
ever, that the railway banks are a. refuge for 
many of the more interesting of our wild 
flowers, as they would be no doubt in 
America. Many plants, such as Willows, 
Roses, Linaria. vulgaris, and many other 
beautiful and interesting subjects are 
enabled to creep almost into the centre of 
London owing to the presence of these rail¬ 
way banks. Mr. Clute mentions somei plants 
which are British as well as American. We 
may state also that Oenothera, biennis, the 
common Evening Primrose, which is a, native 
of America, has, escaped from very many gar¬ 
dens in this country and again tasted the 
sweets of liberty along the railway banks. 
Other exotic flowers, including Antirrhinum 
majus and Campanula. Media, have also in 
some places, found a. refuge along the railway 
banks, especially in cuttings where the 
chalky soil is favourable to them and not so 
much over-run by native vegetation. Some 
of the plants which Mr. Clute mentions are 
Ranunculus acris, Chrysanthemum Leucanr 
themum, Convolvulus' sepium, and Galium 
boreale, all of which are British. 
White Heather in London. 
For many years past it ha® been quite a 
common occurrence for White Heather, in 
the form of buttonholes, to be sold on the 
streets of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and 
possibly elsewhere in, the North. White 
Heather has now reached London, where it 
is also made up in the form of button-holes 
and bouquets. One of our daily contem¬ 
poraries says that, a profitable trade is being 
carried on by gathering the Heather on 
thei moors and sending it 'to Coveut Garden. 
That may apply to tire ordinary rurple 
Heather, but certainly would not apply to 
White Heather, which is not sufficiently plen¬ 
tiful in a wild state anywhere toi supply the 
needs of an industry even, though small. The 
finding of White Heather is .comparatively 
rare and uncertain, and we believe that white 
varieties of three of the more common British 
Healths at least would just be as common, in 
Com wall as on the Northern moors. We 
'have seen specimens in- London described as 
real wild White Heather, but it, had- the as¬ 
pect of some well-known varieties cultivated 
with great success in several nurseries of the 
north. Noi doubt they occurred in a wild 
state at one 'time, but they have been intro¬ 
duced to cultivation and propagated. 
Lord Tullibardine’s Button¬ 
hole Rose. 
On the occasion of the opening of the Blair¬ 
gowrie and Rattray Flower Show Lord Tulli- 
bardine told his audience a story about the 
finding of a Rose in the Soudan. He remem¬ 
bered, when trudging along the sands in 
Egypt one day, after nine months during 
which time he had not seen a, blade of grass, 
that ha suddenly came upon an English Rose. 
This occurred while he was going over from 
Omdunnan to Khartoum. This raised his 
spirits .immensely, and lie could not refrain 
from plucking the Rose and putting it in 
his button-hole. Later on he learned that 
this Rose 'had been planted within a yard 
of the spot where General Gordon was killed. 
Still further excited on learning this fact, he 
dug up the Rose and attempted to bring it 
home to bis Perthshire estate', but, alasd it 
died on the way. Hoot awa,’, Tullibardine! 
After this experience his Lordship should 
make amends by sending a Large consign¬ 
ment of Roses, so that the desert, after all 
would be made “ to blossom as the Rose,” 
•and thus profit from the incident. Most 
people, 'on meeting with flowers under such 
circumstances, would be most, likely to pluck 
them, but surely the plant might have been 
left to blossom where it had thus' become 
established. A little reflection, surely, should 
have prompted his Lordship to have taken a 
pot specimen there, and had it budded with 
Gordon’s Rose'. There is a specimen of Fitz¬ 
Gerald’s Rose in Kew Gardens, but- our im¬ 
pression is that only a part, of the Rose wa,s 
taken, possibly only a graft or bud, and that, 
the original bush was left- where it grew. 
