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AMARYLLIS (HIPPEASTRUM) PARDINA.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION.

THIS magnificent species of Amaryllis is one of the most striking novelties of the past season, perfectly distinct from all the species of Amaryllis previously known, and remarkable alike for its form, which is spreading, with scarcely any tube, so that the whole inner surface is displayed to view; and for its colouring, which reminds one of the spotted varieties of Calceolaria or of Tydæa, so closely are its perianth segments covered over with small dots, more or less irregularly confluent, of crimson red on a creamy yellow ground. So distinct a plant, combining as it does great beauty with its distinctness, cannot but be a valuable acquisition for our gardens.

The plant is a native of Peru, and was introduced from thence by the Messrs. Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea, through their fortunate collector, Mr. Pearce. It was exhibited in bloom at one of the meetings held during March of the present year, and was much and deservedly admired. Its merits were marked on this occasion by the award of first-class certificate, which was in every way deserved. Every grower of hothouse bulbs must secure it for his collection.

Our memoranda, taken from the blooming plant, describe the leaves as broadly linear, somewhat blunt, and about 1 inch broad. The flower-stem is robust, terete, and glaucous, supporting two flowers, which issue from a spathe of pallid oblong-lanceolate bracts, and are supported on pedicels of about 1 inch long. The flowers are widely expanded 6 to 8 inches broad; the tube very short, and fringed within; the sepaline segments ovate oblong, apiculate, the petaline similar, but blunter, all greenish at the base of the tube, yellowish white upwards, and there spotted thickly with crimson dots; the stamens declinate, with red filaments and green anthers.

Being a native of Peru, this species will not require excessive heat; a cool stove treatment will be best for it. In other respects its culture will be similar to that of other stove Amaryllids, some of which were recently noticed in our pages.

M.

GARDEN ROSES.

"ROSES at the exhibitions and Roses in one's own garden are different things," said an old Rose amateur to me the other day; and so much is there in this remark, that having already given a paper on Roses at the exhibitions, I turn now to treat of "Garden Roses."

It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to remark that those who admire Roses in all their native loveliness on bush or tree, should hardly choose their varieties from the cut specimens met with at the flower shows. Lovely they are, it is true-for when and where is the Rose not lovely ?-but there is a getting up," a weary look about them, which reminds one of the late hours of the ball-room rather than of the charming freshness and native simplicity of home life. And how can it be otherwise? When we consider

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that these Roses have been gathered from fifty to sixty hours before the public is admitted to see them, a part of which time they are packed in boxes almost immured from air and light, the wonder is that they look as fresh as they do. Then, again, the mere exhibitor of Roses runs too much after one idea-form, to be a safe guide when choosing for garden decoration. He

VOL. VI.

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does not heed sufficiently habit and constitution; and hence the symmetrical flower of the exhibition table is often the offspring of a weakly or shabby tree. We want good Roses; but we want also, for the purpose of general gardening, varieties of hardy constitution that will grow and flower well, and live to a good old age, without the petting and coaxing which so many of the modern varieties require. To choose Roses, unless exhibiting is the main object in view, one should see them in their rural homes, where the act of " getting up" is seldom practised, and pretty faces count only at their proper worth -should see them when newly opened by the breath of morn, and while still wet with the dews of heaven. Freshness is the crowning beauty, the indescribable and irresistible charm of the Queen of flowers, and this freshness is wanting in nine-tenths of the flowers met with on the exhibition tables. But there is more in the matter than this. The practised rosarian may gather from a solitary bloom, or a trio of blooms, whether the plant is of hardy or delicate constitution, whether the bearing is handsome or awkward, whether the flowers are generally or only occasionally fine, and the many other little points important though often overlooked in the hasty generalisations of this busy age, and which go to make up a good Rose-the practised rosarian, I say, may arrive pretty accurately at these facts from cut specimens, but woe be to the unpractised who decides and acts on such evidence. Daily experience confirms the opinion long entertained by the writer, that they who want Roses to decorate their gardens should choose from growing plants rather than from cut flowers. Acting on these views I lately, when visiting the Rose gardens in France, made notes of the best garden Roses, and these I have corrected by comparison with the collection growing here under my own eye.

First, I would observe that the amateur who wishes for a fine display of Roses in June and July, will lose much if he exclude from his list certain varieties of summer Roses. Among the Moss Roses there are:-Comtesse de Murinais (white), Gloire de Mousseuses (blush), Marie de Blois (lilac), the old-fashioned Moss and the Crested Moss (pink), Baron de Wassenaer (red), and Captain Ingram and Purpurea rubra (purple), all free, hardy, profuse, and beautiful. Of Damask Roses Madame Hardy and Madame Soetmans are still unsurpassed as white flowers, although rarely met with at the exhibitions. The varieties Félicité and La Séduisante compel us to retain the group Alba; these are improved varieties of the Maiden's Blush, and, although there are now Hybrid Perpetuals of similar character, they are so delicate as to be short-lived and scarcely manageable. Neither are the old French Roses to be hastily ignored, for in Œillet Parfait and Perle des Panaches we have the two best striped Roses (white striped with crimson and rose), that have yet appeared. Again, where effect is valued, where masses of bloom are desired, there are none comparable to the old Hybrid Chinas Charles Lawson, Chénédolé, Coupe d'Hébé, Juno, Madame Plantier, Paul Perras, and Paul Ricaut. Nor must we forget to include Harrisonii (Austrian), a plant of matchless beauty when covered with its golden globes in May and June. Yet how few of these ever put in an appearance at the Rose shows! If our new Hybrid Perpetuals produced the masses of bloom in summer which the above-mentioned kinds do, and continued to bloom constantly throughout the autumn, it would be well to take them in preference. But this is not the fact. Cultivators know well that the majority of these Hybrid Perpetuals produce fewer flowers in summer, and scarcely an equivalent in the later flowers. The difference is, perhaps, hardly appreciable in the sum total of flowers. It is this: The summer Roses pay

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