THE GARDENERS’ MAGAZINE. 
243 
having flowered, had a 
,. of forty-one feet; height cf 
.leaf from the ground, eleven 
h of longest leaf, eight feet 
broadth of leaf, nineteen 
Melianthus and Semele. 
’ us major L» a South African 
■ luced into this country in 1688. 
king by reason of the bright, 
, T. v-green colour, which, at full 
/ Tors the whole plant. The 
• rjiv.w and indented leaves look very 
‘ - in their verdant hue, and fit it 
‘.d positions on lawns, as well as 
planting, in which it is seen 
’ t advantage. It needs full sun, 
iJenty of water, and manure. In 
1 its magnificent leaves assume 
dodes, are about two feet in length, and 
are furnished with from twelve to twenty 
pinnate sections, which are of a brightly- 
polished green colour. As the foliage 
droops slightly the shining green of the 
great leaves is well displayed. The tex¬ 
ture of the foliage is very leathery, and it 
is not uncommon for individual leaves to 
remain in a perfectly fresh condition for 
six or seven years. When well-established 
strong, asparagus-like shoots are thrown up 
that in vigorous spemmens often attain a 
length of forty feet in one season. 
In the summer small^ greenish-white 
flowers, each about one-eighth of an inch 
across, are borne in clusters at the edges 
of the leaflets. Every oladode upK>n the 
plant is covered with these tiny blossoms, 
and the effect produced is pleasing, though 
it is owing to its attractiveness as a foliage, 
THE DOUBLE^FLOWERED 
BLACKTHORN. 
The common blackthorn, Prunus spinosa, 
is such a familiar bush in hedgerows and 
coppices that we should hesitate about in¬ 
troducing it to gardens, although it is a 
very beautiful o'bject dunng March and 
early April when covered with its pretty 
white blossoms. But there is a double- 
flowered form which is quite worth garden 
room, and a well-floweri specimen always 
excites admiration. Of rather dense, bushy 
habit, it, like the type, forms stifP, spiny 
branches and short, spur-like growths, from 
which the white flowers, which are about 
one-third of an inch across, appear with 
great freedom, and retain their freshness 
and beauty as long again as do those of 
the single-flowered forms. 
A FINE GEOUP OF AGAVES IN THE OPEN AT BOZELLE,. TORQUAY, 
le largest specimen is 5ft. Sin. high, and over 6ft. across, and one of its leaves is 15in. broad. 
- - -a bend in the midrib, a, 
diolri!?®''*’ than i 
“PPer and , 
rt« lively foliage. It hi 
' L but 12 d 
not harmed it. 
" • lie ^11 s'tnation, whe 
it i* ablo 
extremely 
I? ^ 
'***Pe an ft"?** ^he 
rather than a flowering, plant, that Semele 
androgyna is chiefly valuable. The flowers 
are followed by 0 Garlet berries, and these 
are to be seen on plants growui in the 
open in Devon and Cornwall. It is an 
excellent subject for draping a wall or for 
rambling over a high fence, and is one of 
the handsomest of foliage plants. 
In the severe frost of February last year 
the specimen at Kingswear was cut to the 
ground, but in April two new shoots were 
thrown up, which grew to a length of about 
twenty feet in the season, and in the 
autumn two more shoots were produced. It 
is a splendid subject for a cool struoture. 
In the Temperate House at Kew there is a 
fine specimen, which has reached the glass 
roo.f at a height of over thirty feet. This 
species was introduced into this country 
exactly two hundred years ago. 
Wyndham Fitzhebbert. 
Kingswear. 
Unfortunately, it is a rather difl&cult 
shrub to propagate, and grafting or layer¬ 
ing has to be r^ed on, therefore there does 
not appear to be any possibility of obtaining 
it in quantity, otherwise it would form a 
most effective plant for massing on dry 
•banks. As it is, the usual meiJiod is to 
cultivate it as a specimen bush, or as a 
group in a shrubbery, for both of which 
purposes it is very well adapted. By 
using it as a specimen bush, and planting 
the ground beneath with the later chiono- 
doxas or early muscaris, an effective con¬ 
trast is provided between the white flowers 
of the plum and the blue carpet. liike P. 
spinosa, the double-flowered blackthorn is 
not very particular regarding soil, al¬ 
though it thrives most satisfactorily in 
that of a loamy nature. This shrub may 
be planted in any good garden soil with 
the assurance of it proving satisfactory. 
W. Dablimore. 
