CURRENT NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
A correspondent of the Garden describing the White 
Tiger flower, says: ‘‘It is a great beauty, and a real 
gain to all who admire the ephemeral beauty of the 
older kinds, Tigridia, Paeonia, Grandiflora. and Con¬ 
ch ijl ora. But few novelties of recent times have given 
me greater satisfaction, simply because the plant is 
what the introducers said it was, a White Tigridia; and 
so it is, milk-white, with rich lake blotches in the cen¬ 
tre. Ah! if all new plant-introducers knew the magic 
force and potentialities of truth, the good seed that ever 
lives and grows forever, as Longfellow says, it would 
be better for us all. We are often led astray by a florid 
array of words, descriptions that mislead rather than 
inform: but this White Tiger flower came so simply 
and unforced, that for once the eloquence of a plant's 
own loveliness takes us by surprise. I feel as if I should 
like to shake hands with the man who raised it from 
seeds. But, now I come to think of it. who did raise 
it ? Who will tell us of this new beauty's birth ? Who 
had the original stock ? For once word-mongers seem 
to have been left in the lurch, and so a "sweet, pale 
beauty ° comes to us and marks out a right royal road 
to herself by, as it were, regal right. We shall call this 
the queen of all the Tiger flowers, and give her a 
royal welcome.” 
This plant has flowers in the greatest profusion on the 
grounds of John Lewis Childs, Queens, X. Y.. during 
the entire summer and autumn, and we must say that 
the above glowing description does it but partial jus¬ 
tice. It flowers as freely as the Grandiflora. increases 
with great rapidity, and is, in all respects, a decided 
acquisition. 
■£■ * = 
French horticulturists are at present greatly inter¬ 
ested in a plant at one of M. de Rothschild's celebrated 
hot-houses at Ferrieres. near Paris. Perhaps the 
strangest of the strange family of Orchids. Vanda Loici, 
was discovered by H. Low, in 1847, in the hot damp 
forests of Borneo, where it climbed to the top of the 
highest trees. Its long leaves, which not rarely meas¬ 
ure a yard or more in length, appear small if compared 
with the length of the clusters of buds, which reach a 
length of three yards. Each cluster—of which there 
are at present eleven in full flower at Ferrieres—num¬ 
bers 280 buds, all flowering at the same time, which are 
so different in appearance, that side by side they may 
easily be taken for distinct species. The plant was 
bought in 1876 for a large sum of money, but at present 
it is considered worth $2o,000. It is reported from 
Italy that, in the garden of the Marquis Corsi-Salviati, 
at Sesto Florentine, the Vanda Lowi is also at present 
in flower, which is the first time that it lias ever 
flowered in Italy. 
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Thx garden, says the N. Y. Times, has sent forth into 
the world some noted men. The most popular, noted, 
and deserving man who ever lived began his career in a 
garden. "We refer to Adam, who has a broader claim 
to distinction than even our own much-beloved Wash¬ 
ington; for while he was simply the father of his 
country, or stood in loco parentis or as a foster parent 
to it, Adam was the actual father of tho whole human 
race, and consequently filled the very first position in 
society. And he was brought up in a garden. Passing 
over intervening history down to modern times, we find 
the inventor and originator of that class of buildings of 
glass and iron, fairy-like in lightness and airyness, of 
which the Centennial buildings were an example, and 
whose name was Joseph Paxton, was a gardener, a 
Scotch youth who went on foot hundreds of miles, 
carrying his shoes and stockings in his hand between 
the towns, so that he might appear to better advantage 
among the more polite urban population, and who 
finally became the most noted horticulturist and botan¬ 
ist of the world, as well as the originator of a most use¬ 
ful kind of building. Finally, that most noted mission¬ 
ary and explorer in Africa. Robert Moffatt, might be 
mentioned as having grown up in a garden. For it was 
while employed as a gardener that the desire came upon 
him like an inspiration to become a missionary, a mes¬ 
senger of good, to the African savages and to pave the 
way for all the modern explorers who follow his peace¬ 
ful trails with muskets and weapons of war to couquer 
and prey upon the tribes and the rich lands whose ex¬ 
istence he first made known. And while mankind had 
its origin in the flowery bowers of a garden, some of its 
greatest friends and benefactors have emerged from the 
same delightful source. 
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The attention of the Indian Government has been 
drawn to a new plant, which is common in southern 
India, and yields abundant supplies of pure caoutchouc. 
It is an apocynaceous plant called Pramcria glanduli- 
fera, the native habitat of which appears to be in the 
forests of Cochin China, where the liquid juice is often 
employed in medicine by the Annamites and Cambodi¬ 
ans. In China it is called tuchung, and is a frequent 
ingredient in the Chinese matena medica, in the shape 
of blackened fragments of bark and small pieces of 
twigs. 
According to the St. James Gazette, among the 
flowers for sale in the streets of London, the Pink is 
this year more common than usual, and some of the 
varieties show a novel and quaint South Kensington 
commixture of fulvous-tawny hues. But the old Clove 
Pink still holds its own against all comers, though 
probably, many who purchase it do not know that in so 
doing they are perpetuating the popularity of the 
flower that has always been pre-eminently a favorite in 
England under the name of “Gillyflower.” For that 
the Clove Pink is really the Gillyflower, there can be 
little doubt. The French have “girofl6” for a Clove, 
and “giroflee” for a Clove Pink. Chaucer has “ Clove 
Gilofre” (the g is soft, of comae, all through); and at 
the present day in the country, the Clove Pink is called 
the “ Clove Gilliver,” which is almost identical in sound 
with gilofre. Gilliver becomes “gillyflower” very 
easily, and so “ July flower.” Nevertheless, we know 
there are those who contend that the wall flower is the 
