Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON Royal Horticultural Society, July 25.—Sir J. D. Hooker in the chair.—Hybrid Tacsonia: Dr. Masters exhibited a blossom of a hybrid between T. exoniensis (itself a hybrid) and Vochsiemi.—Rhododendron camettii florum: Mr. Mangles exhibited a spray of this late-flowering species, which resembled a tea in flower. It bore only one flower instead of two together, as described by Hooker; and he suggested it might be identical with R. sparsiflorum, Booth, of Bhotan. In foliage it agrees with R. Maddeni.—Hollyhock disease: Mr, W. G. Smith gave an account of his planting healthy seeds of the hollyhock and others affected with Puccmia. He planted twenty tainted seeds, one of two only which germinated, survived. This one appears to be quite un affected. Of fifty healthy seeds, all germinated. After the third week, leaves of common mallow diseased with Puccinia were scattered amongst them. In less than a week forty-six of the seedlings died of the disease.—Rhododendron hybrids: Mr. Veitch sent blossoms of seedlings of a hybrid, to show interesting deviations, a slightly double flower having been artificially “self-fertilised,” twenty seedlings were raised from it. Of these five have blossomed, as follows: a deep rose, a double white, a semi-double yellow, a salmon, and a semi double rose. The remarkable features about them are that white crossed by orange gives pink, the yellow being eliminated, and that a rudimentary calyx appears on these seedlings, R. Jasminiflorum, one of the original parents, having none.—Mr. Henslow remarked on the general tendency to suppress a calyx in flowers, which are small and massed together, as in Rubiaceæ, Caprifoliaceæ, Umbellifeæ, &c, and suggested that its re-appearance was correlated to the enlarged corolla, and less “massing” of the truss than occurs in R. Jasminiflorum.