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MARCH 11, 1882.] THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 341

winter, and the plants are now producing their
flowers in great abundance. The Anemone represents
a group of most useful spring flowering plants,
commencing with the scarlet A. fulgens, and follwoing
on the Apennina, the varieties of Hepatica,
stellata, cornonaria, sylvestris, and the varieties of
A. nemorosa. All of them do well in the open
ground, and when they become firmly established
flourish with freedom and do a rare service in the
garden.

— CLASSIFICATION OF POTATOS.—In the
Revue Horticole is given an abstract of M. HENRY
VILMORIN'S classification of Potatos. The main groups
are five—yellow, rose, red, violet, and variegated.
Each of these five main groups is subdivided according
as the tubers are round, elongated, flattened,
smooth, or notched. Further points of distinction
are to be sought in the eyes, which are violet, yellow,
rose, or white, and in the colour of the flowers—grey,
lilac, white.

— CAMELLIAS AND HYACINTHS.—On Wednesday
Messrs. WILLIAM PAUL & SON, of Waltham
Cross, opened an extensive and very interesting exhibition
of Camellias and Hyacinths, &c., in the
Royal Botanic Society's Garden, Regent's Park.
Intending visitors should make a point of going early
in the ensuing week.

— SEEDLING POTATOS.—The judging of seedling
Potatos by the International Committee at the
Exhibition of September 20 and 21 is intended to be
as thorough and comprehensive as possible. Raisers of
seedlings will find the terms stated in the schedule
under classes P, Q, R, S, but it may prevent mistakes
and disappointments if we at once endeavour to
state the case clearly. An intending exhibitor must
at once forward "a sufficient number of tubers of
each variety" to Mr. BARRON, Royal Horticultural
Gardens, Chiswick, and a memorandum on the subject
to the Secretary of the International Potato
Exhibition, 23, Upper Thames Street. The judges
will require to have before them on September 20 a
dish of nine samples of each competing seedling, and
an extra parcel of six for cooking, and as a matter of
course these should not be exposed to the light in
any way, The judges will act on the report as to
cropping, on the report as to tasting, and on the
appearance of the exhibition samples. The object of
all this trouble is, of course, to render the final
decisions as much as possible beyond question, and of
real public importance.

— THE WEATHER.—General remarks on the
temperature, rainfall, and duration of bright sunshine,
for agricultural and sanitary purposes, during the week
ending March 6, issued by the Meteorological Office,
London:—The weather has been very unsettled and
dull, with rather heavy rain in the south, and rain,
snow, or sleet in the north. The temperature, though
lower than during last week, has still been above the
mean in England and Ireland, but in Scotland it was
slightly below. The thermometer was generally
highest on the 5th or 6th, the maxima ranging from
51[degrees] in "Scotland, W." to 55[degrees] at some of our southwestern
stations, and 57[degrees] at Hereford. The minima
were lower than of late, and varied from 27[degrees] in the
"Midland Counties" to 35[degrees] in "Ireland, S." The rainfall
has been more than the mean in all districts, the
excess in the west and north-west being rather large.
Bright sunshine shows a decrease in the extreme
north-east but an increase elsewhere. The percentage
was greatest (38) in "England, S.," and least (11) in
"England, N.W." Depressions observed:—At the
commencement of the period the barometer was rising
in all parts of our area, with moderate southerly or
south-westerly winds; but by 8 A.M. on March 1 the
mercury had fallen rapidly, and an irregularly-shaped
area of low pressure, around which were steep gradients,
was shown over England and Ireland. This
disturbance caused at first strong easterly winds or
gales in the north, and fresh or strong westerly gales
in the south; but as it slowly filled up the force of the
wind gradually abated, and by the evening of the 3d
had become very light from the east on all our coasts.
From the 4th until the close of the period the barometer
was highest in the southern part of our area,
while depressions travelled in an easterly direction
across our northern coasts, giving us south-westerly to
north-westerly winds, which occasionally increased to
a strong breeze or fresh gale.

HOW TO DISTINGUISH
ORCHIDS OUT OF FLOWER*
IN the Gardeners' Chronicle, n.s., xiv. p. 750,
there is a translation of an analytical key to the vegetative
characters of various Orchids and groups of
Orchids, originally published by Dr. Pfitzer in the
Verhandlungen des Naturhist.-Med. Vereins zu
Heidelberg; and in an introductory note thereto most
of the technical terms there and here employed are
explained. What is there set forth in a tabular form
is elaborated and illustrated by additional examples
in the book before us. Ignoring altogether the floral
characters, Dr. Pfitzer attempts to construct a comparative
classification or subordination of Orchids
from the characters afforded by their vegetative

[black and white illustration]] W.G.S.
FIG. 51.—AERIDES SCHRŒDERI.
An example of a monopodial Orchid, in which the main stem continues to grow at the point, the inflorescence shoots
being given off at the sides from the axil of the leaves.

organs—that is to say, their stems, leaves, and inflorescences;
but partly in consequence of teh great
value of living plants of many species, partly in consequence
of many species and genera being only known
from portions of plants preserved in herbaria, this
classification, as the author acknowledges, though
embracing all the tribes of the order, is fragmentary
and incomplete. Nevertheless, it may serve as a basis
for further researches in the same branch of knowledge,
and the author has done well to publish the
results of his labours at once, instead of delaying it
until he could fill up the gaps. At the same time, it
is disappointing to find that this massive quarto
volume contains nothing nearer finality in the classifi- [classification]

*Grundsüge einer vergleichenden Morphologie der Orchideen
(Outlines of a Comparative Morphology [of the Vegetative
Organs] of the Orchideæ). Von Dr. Ernst Pfitzer, O. Professor
der Botanik an der Universität Heidelberg. 4to,
pp. 194. with one coloured and three uncoloured plates and
thirty-five woodcuts. Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung,
1882.

[classification] cation of Orchids according to their vegetative characters
than does the abstract referred above. It
might have been expected that the author would exhaustively
examine the results obtained, and have indicated
how far they might be used in conjunction with the
characters of the floral organs in a systematic classificatin
of the order; but he has not done so. Neither
has he attempted the classification of all the species
of a single large genus. What he has done is to study
a number of species of barious genera—as many, it
may be presumed, as offered sufficient materials—and
to construct a framework of a classification from their
vegetative characters. It is not clear whe value the
author himself attaches to his work, or how far he
anticipates that characters of the vegetative organs
can be utilised in a systematic classification. At p. 7

he mentions that Mr. Bentham, in his essay on the
tribes of the Orchideæ,* makes no use of the abstract
published in this journal and elsewhere, from which
it might be inferred that he considers use might have
been made of it. At p. 8 he distinctly states that he
would not think of classifying Orchids by their habit
alone; yet he does not say how far he would go. We
are left to determine how far this is feasible as best
we may from the body of work.

With regard to the genera Bletilla, Preptanthe, and
the relationship of Phaius, Calanthe, and Limodorum,
alluded to at p. 4 as instances of Orchids closely
allied in vegetative characters, and even in their floral
characters, except the pollinia, it may be mentioned
that Blume and Bentham have stated that Bletilla and
Preptanthe were separated from Bletia and Calanthe
respectively, owing to a mistaken view as to the
nature of their pollen. And Mr. Bentham would

*Journal of the Linnean Society, xviii, pp. 281—360.