412 Missouri State Horticultiiral Society. 



FREAKS OF NATURE. 



Wm. Bassett, Hammouton, N. J., says: "1 have several 

 times observed a secondary flower stem growing from another, on 

 geranium Dr. Lindley. These were always smaller than the 

 original cluster, but produced leaves and could be used for propa- 

 gation the same as other portions of the plant," 



[It may be worth while to note that a flower stem is only a 

 modified branch, and, when not perfectly reduced fi-om a bianchto 

 a flower stem, may produce weak branches, as if it were a perfect 

 branch. Indeed it is because of just such occurrences as these that 

 the morphologist is able to lay down the law that a flower shoot is 

 but a modified branch, for no one has been able to get down to the 

 beginning of the transformation. — Editor Gardener's Monthly.^ 



PRODIGIOUS STRAWBERRIES. 



We have had brought to our attention this season an extraor- 

 dinary number of new seedlings, each claiming to be the best ever 

 raised, but when we get them we fail lo see any difference from 

 scores of others already known, and decline to give the desired 

 "boost" to them. We are willing to go to the expense of engraving 

 anything when such engraving informs and instructs ; but in the 

 case of these strawberries, all we should have to do would be to 

 sort out some cut of a bushel on hand, and no reader would ever 

 be the wiser. This fact seems to impress others as well as us, for 

 the trade cuts now generally aim at something else besides form 

 and color. Before us is a colored illustration of a grand novelty, 

 which gives a stalk with twenty berries all ripe, and not one less 

 than three inches round on the side of view, and allowing one-half 

 on the side we cannot see, this would give thirty berries all ripe at 

 one time on a single stalk, and ranging from three to four and a 

 half inches in diameter. We should not like to say such a sight 

 is impossible, or that the picture is overdrawn, but we do say that 

 few who buy the plants will ever see the picture realized. — Editor 

 Gardeners' Monthly. 



PROPAGATING PLANTS. 



Is there any more bewitching occupation that reasonable 

 mortals can engage in than the propagation of new and rare hardy 

 trees and shrubs ? To see sin'inging up around you the thrifty 

 rows of little beauties collected by loving hands from the uttermost 

 parts of the earth, nature's darlings, the pride of many distant 

 people, and the surprise and delight of our own countrymen, is a 

 pure and daily new sensation, whose bright charm keeps us always 

 children in our quick impressibility and enthusiasm. 



