November  21,  1895, 
JOURNAL  UF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
477 
it  grows  yields  next  to  nothing  else  in  the  way  of  flowers.  When 
it  is  over  the  pink  and  white  winter  Heaths — E.  carnea  and 
E.  c.  alba  or  herbacea — will  follow,  and  help  us  through  the  nearly 
flowerlesi  days.  They  are  covered  with  buds,  and  in  several  places 
in  the  garden  will  soon  open  and  show  their  wax-like  flowers. 
The  autumn  or  winter  Snowdrops  are  the  objects  of  much 
admiring  interest.  Writing  in  the  beginning  of  November  only 
the  two  mentioned  on  page  407  as  grown  under  the  names  of 
Galanthus  corcyrensis  and  G.  montanus  are  in  bloom,  and  many  a 
look  is  given  to  them  as  we  pass  by  and  see  their  pure  flowers 
spreading  in  the  midday  sun.  The  others  are  being  delayed  by  the 
hard  crust  formed  by  the  frost  on  the  surface  of  the  soil.  Of  one 
— the  true  G.  Rachel® — which  Mr.  F.  W.  Burbidge  so  generously 
sent  me  in  1893 — it  has  to  be  said  that  for  the  first  time  it  has 
shown  for  flower.  Alas!  however,  that  “hope  deferred,”  which 
we  so  often  experience  in  gardening,  once  more  “  makes  the  heart 
grow  sick,”  as  an  unkindlv  slug  or  snail  has  devoured  the  flower 
while  in  the  bud  stage.  Rare  epicures  are  these  enemies  of  ours, 
with  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  newest  and  choicest  flowers  of  the 
garden.  One  of  the  race  afterwards  found  in  suspicious  nearness 
to  the  wasted  flower  was  promptly  sacrificed  in 
our  hot  wrath,  but  the  deed  was  done,  and  we 
must  perforce  hope  another  season  to  see  this 
cherished  Snowdrop  in  bloom. 
The  frost  is  checking  the  Crocuses,  and  the 
best  at  present  are  some  late  clamps  of  C,  longi- 
fiorus,  which  are  opening  daily  to  the  sun,  but  are 
to  some  extent  shielded  from  rough  weather  by 
small  hand-lights  with  free  ventilation.  C. 
Imperati,  which  looked  as  if  it  would  come  pre¬ 
maturely  into  flower,  has  been  delayed  by  the 
cold,  and  looks  now  as  if  it  would  come  in  the 
time  it  is  most  welcome — early  in  January. 
Several  others  are  making  slow  progress. 
In  the  more  sheltered  parts  of  the  garden 
there  are  a  good  many  flowers  which  have  more 
or  less  satisfactorily  resisted  the  severity  of  the 
weather.  Late  sown  Godetias  are  still  bright, 
but  the  more  tender  Trop^olums  hang  from  the 
trellis  and  hedges  with  a  desolate  look,  inviting 
removal  to  the  rubbish  heap.  The  quaint  Snap-* 
dragons  show  no  sign  of  injury,  and  redeem 
many  a  corner  from  dullness.  Stray  plants  of 
Hutchinsia  alpina  yield  a  few  spikes  of  bloom, 
and  alpine  Auriculas  give  some  untimely  flowers. 
The  Anthemises  are  still  bright  with  their  second 
crop  of  flowers  which  come  in  well  for  cutting, 
although,  of  course,  the  Chrysanthemums  mono¬ 
polise  the  general  admiration.  The  old  pot 
Marigold,  which,  for  all  its  commonness,  is  worthy 
of  a  place  in  many  gardens,  and  which  comes  up 
of  itself  in  my  garden,  gives  a  few  of  its  orange- 
coloured  flowers  in  sheltered  spots  still,  and  we 
cannot  join  with  the  poets  or  gardeners  of  modern 
days  who  neglect  it.  Canon  EUacombe  says, 
“  From  the  time  of  Withers  the  poets  treated  the 
Marigold  very  much  as  the  gardeners  did,  they 
passed  it  by  altogether  as  beneath  their  notice.” 
Then  we  still  have  some  flowers  of  Cam¬ 
panula  muralis  in  various  corners  among  the 
rockeries,  where  it  is  sheltered  from  the  cold 
blasts,  and  where  the  pretty  blue  floweri  look 
well  on  their  own  foliage.  The  alpine  Linaria 
still  keeps  in  bloom,  with  L.  anticaria  as  iti  com¬ 
panion,  and  the  white  flowerlets  of  Androsace 
coronopifolia  still  look  out  from  their  home  in  one  of  the  pockets 
of  the  rockery.  Achillea  argentea  still  produces  flowers  above  its 
silvery  leaves,  and  one  need  not  look  far  to  see  a  considerable 
number  of  other  flowers  which  have  survived  the  general  decay. 
Now  is  it,  too,  that  we  can  find  time  to  look  more  carefully  at 
the  exquisite  beauty  and  variety  exhibited  by  the  foliage  of  the 
plants,  especially  those  of  dwarf  and  evergreen  habit.  While  some 
are  red  and  brown  of  various  shades,  there  are  silvers  and  greys 
and  greens,  which  seem  to  shine  with  greater  brightness  in  these 
short  days  than  when  all  around  is  bright  with  light  and  colour. 
Mossy  Saxifrages  are  emerald  green,  save  when  the  hoar  frost 
covers  them  with  its  silvery  powder.  The  Encrusted  Saxifrages 
show  their  grey  leaves  with  their  silvery  dots  and  margins. 
Sedums  are  green  or  red  of  glaucous  blue.  New  Zealand 
Veronicas  have  leaves  of  shining,  polished  green,  or  glaucous 
tints  in  great  variety,  and  countless  other  plants  are  beautiful 
with  silvery  grey,  all  adding  to  the  many  true  pleasures  to  be 
found  within  the  garden. — S.  Arnott. 
Cypripedium  Milo  var.  grandis. 
One  of  the  finest  hybrid  Gypripediums  that  has  been  exhibited 
lately  at  the  Drill  Hall,  Westminster,  was  that  shown  under  tbe 
above  name  at  the  last  meeting  by  Messrs.  J.  Veitch  &  Sons,  Royal 
Exotic  Nursery,  Chelsea,  and  which  is  pourtrayed  in  the  woodcut 
(fig.  73).  The  Orchid  Committee  unanimously  awarded  to  it  a 
first-class  certificate.  The  petals  are  bright  yellowish  brown  with 
a  green  margin.  The  pouch,  of  medium  size,  is  bright  reddish 
brown,  while  the  dorsal  sepal  is  yellowish  green,  spotted  and 
patched  brown,  and  with  a  broad  pure  white  margin.  It  is  the  result 
of  a  cross  between  C.  x  oeaanthum  superbum  and  C.  insigne 
Chantini. 
FIG.  73. — CYPRIPEDIUM  MILO  VAR.  GRANDIS. 
THE  STRAWBERRY  BEDS,  DUBLIN. 
Not  with  the  prolific  yield  of  the  luscious  fruit  as  illustrated 
by  a  daily  output  of  tons  during  the  season,  nor  with  the  culture 
this  heading  might  suggest,  but  with  a  run  by  road  from  the 
Milesian  metropolis  to  a  locality  famed  for — what  ?  In  truth,  I 
hardly  know.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  is,  if  our  visitors  to 
Dublin  have  come  and  gone  their  ways  without  doing  the  Straw¬ 
berry  beds  they  have  left  undone  one  of  those  things  which  they 
ought  to  have  done,  and  which  if  done  properly  they  will  not 
regret.  There  is,  indeed,  but  the  one  proper  way,  and  by  this 
route  my  reader,  who  is  perhaps  a  stranger  to  the  Green  Isle,  shall, 
if  he  so  pleases,  accompany  me. 
In  starting  from  the  city  for  our  few  miles  drive  negotiations 
are  attempted  with  a  driver  of  that  ubiquitous  vehicle,  the  jaunting 
car,  but  no  amount  of  parleying  with  prices  can  elicit  more  than 
the  vague  response  “I  leave  it  to  yer  honour.”  Stifling,  for  the 
time,  any  misgivings  anent  prospective  differences  of  opinion,  yet 
