W^f)e l^fjobobenbron ^ocietp ^oteg. 
There is here a small specimen of Rh. Falconeri, and a larger one of 
Rh. eximium, which is held by some to be a variety of the former, and which 
I think is one of the best of the genus. It flowers in April, and appears to make 
no further movement until July, when it begins to push. The young growth is 
then covered with a brown tomemtum that remains on the plant until November, 
giving it a very remarkable and beautiful appearance and making it a con¬ 
spicuous object all through the autumn. 
I have never flowered Rh. ovatum. Planch (to distinguish this rather 
rare Chinese species from a more common hybrid of the same name), though I 
have had the plant for a good many years ; it seems to grow slowly, and yet the 
specimen I have is quite healthy, but perhaps it is placed in too dry a spot which 
may account for its being more backward than ought to be the CcLse. Its 
young growth however is very striking and pleasing, being of a purple violet 
colour, and this compensates to some extent for the want of bloom, and at a 
distance gives the appearance of flower. 
The two Caucasian Rhododendrons Smirnowi and Ungerni are both here ; 
the latter has the strange and rather disappointing peculiarity of flow'ering after 
it has made its growth, and in this respect it differs from everj^ other species. 
The leaves of both are handsome and well covered on the undersides with a thick 
white woolly wad. There is also a hybrid here (Smirnowi x ponticum, I think) ; 
it has the appearance of the ordinary ponticiun or Rose-Bay, but the flower is 
red like that of the other parent. 
There is one other rhododendron I should like to allude to, and I only do so 
because I do not know what it is exactly. It came here vidthout a name, and is 
evidently one of the many varieties of Rh. arboreum. Its foliage is 
identically the same as that of var. cinnamoneum, and I thought it was it, but 
the flower is red not white. It is not var. nilaghiricum, which has, as I think, 
a far finer colour than any other form of that species. 
If I may in conclusion make an allusion to a plant, not a rhododendron, which 
appears to be hardy in a sheltered district, and to be well worthy of a place where 
it will live, I should like to mention Prostanthera lasianthos, coming from 
Australia. I venture to do this as I do not think it is sufficiently weU known. 
The plant here is some thirteen feet high, and in July it is a sheet of bloom. It 
is a handsome evergreen with sweet smelling leaves, flowers in closely packed 
clusters, white, each a third of an inch across, with a weU-marked purple throat. 
It has been here about ten years, and as it appears to be uninjured, up to now, by 
the present severe weather, although planted in the open, I hope it may be 
really hardy and more generally cultivated in favoured districts than has been 
the case before. 
JOHN ROSS OF BLADENSBURG. 
5lh February, 1917. 
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