February 15, 1908. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Grafting - 
. . As a Means of . . 
- Variation. 
and flowers are produced in succession 
from near the ground upwards. The or¬ 
dinary wild type is a recent introduction 
from China that is already finding its way 
into many gardens, and the flowers have 
begun to vary in colour. 
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I have been a subscriber to your valu¬ 
able periodical for some time, and have 
been very much interested in the many 
experimental innovations introduced by 
your contributors. 
I venture now to suggest one which will 
open up a new highway for variation, and 
which may be useful. In that grafting is 
performed more in the way of a surgical 
operation, it has become possible, with 
the help of keen instruments and good 
wax (French is perhaps the best) to graft 
soft wooded plants with a fair chance of 
success. This- opens up several possibili¬ 
ties ; thus (a) weak plants may be streng¬ 
thened by working them on more robust 
varieties of the same species, or, perhaps, 
another species of the same family; (b) 
colours may be changed by working a 
plant bearing white flowers on another 
carrying bright coloured blooms; (c) the 
height of one member of a species may be 
dwarfed, or vice versa; (d) individual 
blooms may be enlarged, or possibly the 
inflorescence “singled ” or “clustered.” 
(a) Parma Violets have already had 
their weakened constitution made more 
robust by grafting them on hardier varie¬ 
ties. Why may not the delicate blue 
Primrose be worked on the common (vul¬ 
garis) Primrose, seeded, and grown, 
selected and fixed; or one of the more 
tender of the Michaelmas Daisies be 
worked on a free growing one, and in like 
manner be made hardier ? 
(b) I do not know what are the chances 
of colour variety in grafting, but there 
can be no reason why a trial should not 
be made. For instance, if one were to 
try the working of a single white Chry¬ 
santhemum on a strong sucker of one of 
the many blue Daisies or Erigerons, and 
succeed in rearing it, might not a tinge 
of the blue be given to the young scion, 
and if so, by seeding, and selection, ulti¬ 
mately a blue ’Mum be obtained? 
(c) Why, again, might not one of the 
abnormally tall ’Mums be worked on a 
dwarf variety, and carefully watched, in 
order to get cuttings from the scion, and 
not from the stock, and if successful, re¬ 
lieve its worshippers of the necessity of 
going up a stepladder in order to ad¬ 
mire it ? (d) The same argument applies 
under this head. 
Of course this is all mere surmise, but 
with the help of a good propagator, what 
might not an enthusiastic experimentalist 
accomplish? J. Taylor. 
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School of Horticulture at Chelmsford. 
The three weeks’ winter course of hor¬ 
ticulture commenced at the Technical 
Laboratories on Monday, the 3rd Febru¬ 
ary, with 16 students, including one from 
Norfolk. 
(Rehmannia angulata Pink Perfection). 
The species of Rehmannia known to 
science are natives of China and Japan, 
and are not particularly numerous. At 
first sight they resemble a species of Fox¬ 
glove in habit and in having drooping 
purple flowers, but the shape of the latter 
is very different from that of a Foxglove. 
Some people have compared the blooms 
to'Gloxinia which, of course, would mean 
the drooping flowered ones before the pre¬ 
sent great improvement was effected. 
The ordinary R. angulata has purple 
flowers, but the new variety has flowers of 
a clear bright pink colour. 
The plant is only half hardy in this 
country and perennial. Seeds are, how¬ 
ever, obtainable, and from these the 
plant may be raised in quantity. The 
seedlings may at first be transplanted to 
boxes of light soil till they attain an inch 
or two in height or have made little 
crowns of leaves. The plants should 
then be potted off singly and either grown 
to flowering size in a greenhouse or they 
mav be grown to fair sized specimens in 
3 in. pots to be housed under glass dur¬ 
ing winter and then transferred to a bed 
in the open ground some time in May 
after they have been thoroughly hardened 
off. 
Although a perennial, it may thus be 
treated practically as a biennial, be¬ 
cause during the second year it will 
throw up a stem from two or three 
to five feet high, according, to the 
strength of the plant and the soil 
in which it is grown. The stems of well- 
grown plants have a stately appearance. 
Maclaren and Sons. 
Rehmannia angulata. 
- A New Rehmannia - 
