Wot l^tjoUobenbion ^ocietp 
The Garden, March \5th, 1884. 
In August, 1882, I paid a visit to Ireland, hoping to find some of the rarer 
Sikkim and Bhotan Rhododendrons surviving in the open air. The mild, 
damp, congenial climate seemed to promise better things than had generally 
happened in most parts of England and the Continent to these plants ; and as 
I had found very interesting survivals in parts of Brittany, in Cornwall, in 
Wales, and in the Isle of Wight, I hoped for even brighter luck in Ireland. Some 
of the very grandest of the Rhododendrons are nearly hardy with us ; but what 
a world there is in the word nearly, even in the mildest of winters ! For instance, 
last year an 8-foot high R. argenteum bore the winter well till the fatal bitter 
month of March caught it in bloom and froze the flowers through and through, 
and stunted some of the leaf-buds, destroying absolutely, however, only those leaf- 
buds which were in immediate contact with the bloom-buds, and which would 
seem to have been sympathetically affected, and so fell victims to the cold, for 
in the true R. argenteum the bloom-buds always open long before the leaf-buds. 
On the other hand, a plant of R. grande under a north wall did well, and set 
two splendid blossom-buds, although only 4 feet high ; while a much larger 
plant of the same species produced blossoms fit to show at South Kensington. 
Last winter, however, was exceptionally mild, as we all know, and in rougher 
years bloom-buds and leaf-buds alike may be destroyed. It does not follow 
that the plants are thereby killed ; but more generally there takes place what 
Mr. Noble (whose “ old experience ” in this branch of horticulture is notorious) 
well described to me as “ dwindling away.” Each year, or nearly so, with 
some species, the main shoot of each branch is cut back by cold. Later on 
side shoots replace it, but the vigour of the plant is injured ; its habit gets 
stunted and unnatural ; flower-buds never or rarely form ; and by-and-by the 
poor cripple perishes, or is put out of its misery. To see such specimens in a 
garden is a mournful sight, although it is scarcely less so to see their pot-bound 
starved brethren sweltering in some blazing conservatory. Truly, these 
Rhododendrons must have iron constitutions to endure the terrible treatment 
they often meet with both out-of-doors and in, and yet sometimes to survive. 
More than thirty years ago seeds and plants of the Sikkim species were distributed 
from Kew, and somewhat later on the Bhotan species, through Mr. Nuttall, 
over a great part of Europe. Many of the plants were grown awhile under glass 
or some protection, and then turned out to make room for more fashionable 
novelties. For several years I have been searching many parts of Europe to see 
the survivors of these plants. Here and there the original plants have been 
found in various conditions of preservation ; but for the most part, they appear 
to have “ dwindled away ” by the process above described, or to have been 
choked out of existence by the common hardy Rhododendrons among which 
they had been planted. 
Many a fruitless journey have I made to the sites of well-recorded former 
collections. In Ireland, however, I hoped for something better, and in the 
Glasnevin Gardens, to begin with, I was not disappointed. 
Rhododendrons 
in Ireland. 
Glasnevin. 
107 
