THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER 
DECEMBER, I, £902. 
© ® “MONTEFIORE” ® ® 
GLASSHOUSE, ROCKERY, AND ORCHID HOUSE. 
Beautiful as may be the grounds sur- 
rounding Montefiore, the visitor has even 
more charm in store after the surroundings 
of the lawns and walks have filled his artis- 
tic soul. All these outside beauties are 
grouped or spread around the sides and in 
front of the house. We will take a look 
in at the houses at the rear, and “lay 
therein what hidden beauty may,” cer- 
tainly the outside of a shadehouse as a rule 
BOP 
cloud, a little Brunswick green should be 
mixed with the composition. The door 
opens upon a clean tiled footway down the 
centre. ‘The benches for the pot plants are 
tiered to about 4 ft. high. Over the door- 
way at each end is a fine piece of Platy- 
cerium grande and P. alcicorne (stag’s horn 
and elk’s horn—from platys, broad, and 
keras, a horn), the fronds of which mea- 
sure some feet. These pieces of ornamen- 
are, of course, represented, and although 
we should like to have seen more of these 
regal foliaged plants, we noted good speci- 
mens of the pink Rex and the deeper color- 
ed fuchsioides. Primulas and Cyclamens, 
too, had somewhat scant representation for 
a first-class house, the most prominent 
being the purple obconica and the yellow 
verticillata. Azaleas were there giving a 
rich coloring to the predominating shades 
Fernery and Grotto at Montefiore, the residence of His Excellency the Right Hon. Chief Justice, Sir Samuel James Way, Bart. 
has not much to commend it. Unless, may- 
be, on the house about to be described there 
clusters in dense growth a fine specimen of 
Trapeolum tricolorum, with its red calyx 
and yellow petals, the single flower of itself 
being nothing much to boast about, but 
when massed in its thick bed of hues cover- 
ing a roof would turn to green envy the 
eye of an English gardener at home. 
The glasshouse, however, is a structure of 
the most approved type, imported from a 
famous firm in the business at Norwich, 
and erected here. It measures approxi- 
mately 25 ft. by 12 ft., the sidelights about 
3 ft. high to the wall plate. Span roofed, 
with top ventilators worked by screw ap- 
paratus from within. The shading of the 
glass is made of a mixture of whiting and 
skim milk, which gives a nice transparent 
film that will stand all weathers. To get 
the effect upon glass known. as summer 
tation are to be found in every fernery as 
being perhaps a type of grandeur and im- 
pressiveness. The general effect of the 
tiers is pleasing in its variety of color and 
form, the grace of the ferns and palms 
adding just the necessary touch of artistic 
ornamentation to the more dignified habit 
of the stiffer-growing foliage, while the 
hanging baskets prettily fill up the other- 
wise blank spaces of the house where the 
potted plants fail in height. Examining 
the plants a little more closely, we note 
on the right hand set of tiers, in the more 
shady aspect of the house, a number of 
Adiantums (Maidenhair ferns), without 
which it seems impossible to furnish a con- 
servatory, Davalias (hare’s foot fern), Fiji- 
ensis and plumosa being very good pots. 
In Draecinas, the specimen of Lindenii was 
showing finely distinctive variegation of 
foliage. The immense family of Begonias 
of green. Epiphyllum was also there in 
good growth of the truncatum variety, and 
a specialty was noted in the variegated 
ivys. We were pleased to see the ivys, for 
the simple reasons that as decorative 
plants they are too much neglected. The 
variegated ivys here give quite an. artistic 
blending of color and pleasing tracery to 
the surroundings. An ivy leaf Tropaeolum 
was very pretty and graceful. a 
Turning now to the left side of tiers, the 
Petunias of more or less beauty were 
ranged, together with Coleuses and Primu- 
las. Some varieties of Orchids were there, 
the best perhaps being the Cypripedium 
(lady’s slipper, from Venus and podion, a 
slipper), insigne, and barbatum. Here — 
were also set out a good collection of zonal 
Pelargoniums, one snow white variety be- 
ing nameless, but charming in its purity 
and shape. A few pots of Fuchsias show 
