THE FLORIST.

HOYA BELLA AND MITRARIA COCCINEA.

In answer to our application, Messrs. Veitch and Son, Nurserymen, Exeter, have obligingly furnished us with the following particulars respecting the subject of our present Illustration, and a notice of the services of their collectors, the Messrs. Lobb, which we hope will prove acceptable to our readers. It is an act of simple justice on our part to record the names of those who enrich our collections by their researches in foreign lands. Nothing would be more interesting than the publication of extracts from the journals of such enterprising men. The drawings were made from life, and have been ready some time, but we have not been able to present them before.

To ourselves it is a pleasing, and to lovers of flowers an interesting circumstance, that in your accompanying plate you have most happily succeeded in grouping together two lovely plants, sent to this country from different hemispheres by those ardent and indefatigable travellers and brothers, Messrs. William and Thomas Lobb.

The Hoya* comes from the Taung Kola mountains, in Moulmein, Straits of Malacca, East Indies; the Mitraria from the island of Chiloe in South America. Both plants are of easy culture; the former delighting in the heat of the warmest stove, whilst the latter equally luxuriates in the coolest greenhouse or conservatory.

We find the Hoya succeed admirably in the hottest department of our Orchid-house, planted in a wire basket, in a mixture of chopped sphagnum moss, fibrous peat, leaf-mould, and sand, and suspended from the roof as we do our Eschynanths and the pendulous-growing Dendrobes. In this position it produces in great abundance and constant succession, throughout the summer and autumn, its most deliciously scented bunches of crystal-like flowers. Sir W. J. Hooker, in writing of it, calls it "the most lovely of all the Hoyas," "first gem of the air," and likens it to "an amethyst set in frosted silver."

* We have reason to fear there is a spurious plant sent out by some parties as this Hoya; it will be well, therefore, for all persons wishing to possess it, to make sure that they get the TRUE Hoya bella of Hooker.

VOL. III. NO. XXV.

B

Although we cannot say the Mitraria is a perfectly hardy plant, yet, from its having stood with us the two last winters against a north wall without protection, and with but very trifling injury, we have every reason to believe it will do well in the open air, in sheltered places, especially when protected by other shrubs. It is, however, as a hardy conservatory plant that we recommend it. We pot it as we do Eriostemons and such-like plants, in a mixture of turfy loam, fibrous peat, and silver-sand. It is a close, compact-growing shrub, of neat foliage, and the blossoms, which are quite equal both in colour and size to the figure, are produced in great abundance. It blooms freely in a small state.

We consider the present subjects two of the very best of our as yet published introductions through the Messrs. Lobb; and it is with great pleasure we avail ourselves of the opportunity of your thus uniting the fruits of their successful labours in your publication, to do them thus publicly an act of justice by recording our sense of their energetic, persevering, and in every way meritorious labours. It is an additional satisfaction to know that the greatest botanists of the day highly appreciate their exertions.

It may not be amiss to inform your readers that these gentlemen, whose names will long be remembered as botanical collectors, are practical gardeners; and that for the last seven years, actuated by a love of botanical science, they have explored, the one in the Eastern, the other in the Western hemisphere, Peru, Patagonia, the island of Chiloe, the Organ mountains, Java, the Philippine islands, Moulmein, Mount Ophir, and Acte, with but little illness, and without meeting with a single accident, or with any insult or molestation from the natives.

Nursery, Exeter.

VEITCH AND SON.

ODE.

WRITTEN AT THE DESIRE OF E. G.

1.

A GARDEN claims the lay:
Nor would the Muse forget

Where dwelt our parents ere they tasted woe;
Where beauties still repay

Man's fostering care; and yet,

In times to come, where brighter scenes shall glow.

2.

To make his glory known,

And on the world He made

To stamp his image, ere its course began ;
When earth, air, seas, be sown

With seed of life, He bade,

Sole lord of all, God last created man.

Where roll'd the fourfold brook

Its streams that Eden fed,

Their way of worship first they learn'd and trod. The garden was the book,

Reveal'd in which they read

Their Father's care, the providence of God.

5.

Their altar it, "to dress

And keep it" was the praise

They offer'd morn and eve for sacrifice.
While all was righteousness

Toil wearied not; the days

Flew swiftly, spent with God in Paradise.

6.

In mythic fables this

Is shadow'd still, and e'en

Where He is known not, to whom Adam knelt:

Type of a future bliss,

By Pagan dimly seen,

Faint gleam of light mid darkness to be felt.

7.

Earth, all a garden, pour'd

Forth its full wealth, and made

Plenty the universal heritage.

Disease and strife abhorr'd

Slew none, while Chronos sway'd

His peaceful sceptre in the golden age.

8.

Nor has this nought of sooth,

Like tale of fairy-land,

To lull their babes to rest by nurses sung;

For at the torch of truth

Tradition lit a brand:

There was an age of gold when Time was young.

9.

But nations there were none
When with the Fount of Good

The first man only, as a friend, conversed:
For Adam reign'd alone,

When all beneath him stood

His loyal subjects ere the earth was cursed.

Willing they came; for he
And they one purpose knew,

And that was love, to God, and each to each.

His mind's supremacy,

His very passions too,

But raised his service more than theirs could reach.

13.

Earth peaceful then, and rife
With herb and flower and fruit,

From her full bosom all her children fed:

None prey'd on others' life,

Nor, culling herb or root,

Found poison lurking in the treacherous mead.

14.

How alter'd now! For sin,
"The wormwood and the gall,"

Scowls from the ruins of that happy state.

When there's a hell within,

Without 'tis certain all

Is anarchy and strife, and love exchanged to hate.

15.

Bound in the iron chain,

Creation weaves a scourge

By war of elements to punish man.
Consumption, and the train

Of wasting fevers, urge

The step of Death, who then his race began.

16.

Yet 'twas by Wisdom plann'd The curse of God should glance, And miss the ruin of a helpless world; For, turn'd by Mercy's hand,

The bolt but struck askance

And broke, against the Rock of Ages hurl'd.

17.

See the pure Lamb of God,

Made sin though sinless, led

To death, that God in place of man might die:
Under his Father's rod

He meekly bow'd his head,

And drank to its dregs the cup of misery.

18.

Now throned in power on high,

The Lord of Righteousness,

He guides the Gospel-car to speed his word,

Till in his majesty

He comes his work to bless,

And earth shall bloom THE GARDEN OF THE LORD.

IOTA.

SEEDLING FLORISTS' FLOWERS.

I AM quite an enthusiast for raising seedling florists' flowers, and would strongly urge both nurserymen and amateurs to devote some portion at least of their time and space to this interesting process; for there yet remains much to be done. On the advantages thereof, and the interest excited thereby, I need not dwell; but I would briefly advert to one source of disappointment to which the raiser of seedlings is subjected, viz. a disposition in seedlings to degenerate the second year. I have frequently seen seedling-blooms of Dahlias, Pansies, and Calceolarias, particularly the latter, very promising; indeed, possessing all the essential properties of a good flower, the second year so to degenerate as not at all to resemble the same thing. As to whether this is a common or casual occurrence, and to what extent generally, I should like to have the opinion of extensive seedling raisers. That the circumstance is not rare I am fully persuaded, by the fact of having bought varieties the second year, which were highly praised when seedlings, not only by the raiser but by respectable journals, and which have turned out the veriest rubbish, not worthy of either name or place in any collection; such as no nurseryman who valued his reputation would have dared to offer to the public, had the seedling-blooms been of no better character than those produced the succeeding year. If seedling flowers generally, then, are so apt to degenerate, surely this argues in favour of nurserymen blooming seedling plants another year before sending them out, and perhaps at very high prices ? Whitby, Dec. 12, 1849. ZEPHYRUS.

[All seedlings should be exhibited and seen as two-year old plants. Parties who buy new varieties from descriptions given in gardening periodicals on flowers sent for opinion are very likely to be misled; and this makes us anxious that our "Note-book" should be found a register of all the really fine things that have appeared during the current season.-ED.]