Old Plants lliat arc iioiv Undeservedly Neglected 



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made from this wonderful plant, when he 

 saw its spreading stems thickly clothed with 

 beautifully cloured strawberr}^-like fruit, so 

 unlike anything that he had either seen or 

 heard of; but his hopes were cruelly blighted 

 by " an older hand," who told him that the 

 plant was only the Strawberry-blite, once a 

 common garden annual, the beautiful but in- 

 sipid fruit of which was formerly used by 

 cooks for colouring puddings. 



On lately visiting a number of gardens, 

 embracing all grades, between the cottager's 

 kale-yard and the gardens of royalty, we took 

 note of many kinds of good old plants that 

 are now undeservedly neglected, and whicli 

 we met with occasionally in the smaller 

 cottage gardens, most frequently in those 

 of plant-loving amateurs, and more rarely in 

 what are termed first-class gardens. And we now 

 give the following extracts from our notes, 

 which must be deemed more illustrative 

 than exhaustive, of a subject Avhich is within 

 the range of every flower-grower's observ-a- 

 tion, and may be widely extended by any 

 who are desirous of cultivating those plants 

 which are really beautiful or desirable, without 

 being guided in selection by merely con- 

 sidering whether they are old or new. 



Of strikingly showy plants, which are 

 especial favourites among cottagers, and the 

 finest specimens of which are usually found 

 under their cultural care, none stands so 

 prominent as the Onopordium Acanthium, 

 usually, although according to some impro- 

 perly, termed the Scotch thistle, but by 

 antient authors named the lUyrian cotton 

 thistle (Acanthium lUyricum), implying that it 

 may have been of foreign extraction, although 

 now admitted as a member of the British 

 flora. And the following descriptions of whicli, 

 by " old Gerarde," conveys a better idea of its 

 appearance than is done by the more strictly 

 scientific characteristics laid down by modern 

 authors — " From the root ariseth a very large 

 and tall stalke, higher than any man, rather 

 like a tree than the annual growth of an herbe 

 or plant ; his leaves are very great, far broader 

 and longer than any other thistle whatsoever, 

 covered with an hoarie cotten or downe." 

 Were a white-flavoured variety of this showi- 



est of thistles obtained, the charm of novelty 

 which would attach to it, might lead to its 

 being more generally and justly appreciated. 

 The Carduus Marianus — our Lady's, or milk 

 thistle, is scarcely surpassed in the beauty of 

 its white and green foliage by the finest 

 white splached Caladiums of our stoves. The 

 majestic specimens of the woolly - leaved 

 Shepherd's Club — Verbascum Thapsus — 

 which may occasionally be seen beside rural 

 cottages, have no counterparts in modern 

 fashionable flower gardens, and the same may 

 be said in relation to some of the taller 

 growing perennial members of the same genus. 

 ^\'here but in the gardens of country 

 labourers are the huge forms of double and 

 single sunflowers to be seen in full bloom and 

 stature ? Sunflower seed, as well as the oil 

 and feeding cake prepared from it, are now 

 important articles of commerce ; and the 

 pig-feeding properties of the seeds, taken in 

 connexion with the immense produce, have 

 only to be better known in order to make 

 the larger growing single-flowered kinds much 

 more generally cultivated by both cottagers 

 and farmers. Besides tall and dwarf, double 

 and single, deep yellow and pale flowered 

 varieties of the annual sunflower, others of 

 more than ordinar)^ gigantic growth have of 

 late been strongly recommended for ornamen- 

 tal as well as economical purposes. It is 

 questionable, however, if any of these will 

 equal the dimensions stated by Gerarde of 

 carefully nourished up plants in Spain and 

 other hot countries, attaining a height of 24 

 feet in one year ; or that they will even ex- 

 ceed the size of a plant grown by him nearly 

 three centuries ago in his garden at Holborn, 

 within the suburbs of London, of "such stature 

 and talnesse that in one sommer being sown 

 of a seede in Aprill, it hath risen up to the 

 height of fourteene foot, whereon one floure 

 was in weight three pound and two ounces, and 

 crosse overthwart the floure by measure sixteen 

 inches broad." The common hemp (Cannabis 

 sativa) , occasionally grown by singing bird-keep- 

 ing cottagers, along with their requisite supplies 

 of canary seed, is a plant of singularly elegant 

 appearance, when, as we have seen it grown 

 by an old matron, of sufficient size to fur- 



