ON FLOWER EXHIBITIONS. 
115 
The Rhodora (the type of the present tribe) is a well-known 
plant, and much admired for its rich purple flowers, which, like 
those of the almond, appear before the leaves. 
The Bejaria racemosa is another exceedingly beautiful plant, 
and very sweetly scented ; the flowers are of a blueish pink ; it 
does best in strong peat, and requires a very liberal supply of 
water, being a native of the swamps of North America'; a warm 
situation in the greenhouse is most suitable. 
Here also is stationed the Kalmia , too well known to require 
any description, though few persons are aware of the deadly 
poison contained under so specious an appearance ; yet a more 
beautiful object, or one that deserves better of the cultivator, is 
scarcely to be found among our North American plants. 
ON FLOWER EXHIBITIONS. 
In our Number for July, 1840, we intimated our readiness to 
insert authenticated lists of the successful flowers and competitors 
at the different flower shows throughout the kingdom, and we so 
far followed this out as to insert as many as our limits would 
admit. A correspondent has sent us a caution, or rather a hint, 
that it is necessary to exercise no small degree of judgment and 
discrimination in this matter. There are, he says, two kinds of 
flowers produced at those exhibitions : First, natural flowers, or 
those which are just as they grew, every care however being 
allowed to be taken in the growing of them ; Secondly, mutilated 
or dressed flowers, of which nature produces the materials; but 
the shape, and probably the arrangement of the petals, are results 
of art. The Carnation and the Dahlia are the two flowers which 
■ 
are most subject to these fraudulent mutilations. “ The dressing ” 
of the former is an old story ; and those who wish to see a highly 
graphic account of it had better read Mr. Hogg of Paddington’s 
Treatise on the Carnation and other Flowers. Me may remark, 
in passing, that this is the most delightful book on Floriculture in 
the English language. The instruction which it affords is authentic 
and admirable in itself, and clearly expressed. Then there is a 
charm thrown over the whole by incidental allusions and deline¬ 
ations of so fascinating a nature, that one who begins the book cannot 
leave off till he comes to the end, and then he shuts it with a regret¬ 
ful exclamation—“ Is it done already ? ” At page 8 of this treatise 
there is a full -length portrait of old Kit Nunn, the loquacious 
