348 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ing upright, from two to ten feetinheighth. Each branch is terminated 

 by a large cluster of white flowers, those in the center being small and 

 perfect, while those of the margin are much larger, but sterile. The 

 perfect flowers are followed by a bright red, berry-like fruit having one 

 flat smooth stone. When cooked with sugar the acid fruit makes a 

 nice dish known as bush cranberry. 



Years of cultivation have so altered the plant that in the guelder 

 rose of our gardens, the flowers are all like those of the margin in the 

 wild plant, thus changing the original cluster to a spherical ball of white 

 corollas all of which are sterile. Its appearance gives to it the popu- 

 lar name. 



The snowball, melting as the heat inscreases, fall to the ground, 

 thus making way for the numberless leaves and flowers which light- 

 hearted June carries in her arms. 



Go into the summer flower garden and notice what varieties take 

 the lead to beautifying the glad world. 



First of all the brilliant geranium, always the standby of both hot 

 house and window gardener, claims attention. Here at your foot is a 

 plant whose graceful form, smooth glossy leaves, and, above all, the 

 delecate odor tells you its florigraphical sign is "preference." There is 

 a plant equally beautiful, but bending to inhale its sweet breath the 

 disappointed experimenter finds it scentless, and understands why this 

 otherwise perfect flower is symbolical of '-'deceit." 



Is it not strange that the scarlet geranium is regarded as the em- 

 blem of stupidity ? Could not the poet find some more suitable mean- 

 ing for this most prized beauty of all its kind ? 



The plants generally known as geraniums are by the botanist di- 

 vided into three classes, erodium, pelargonium and geranium, the En- 

 glish signification of the terms being heron's bill. The names are given 

 from the fancied resemblance of the flowers to the appendages of these 

 birds. Those most cultivated with us belong to the family pelargo- 

 nium, or stork's bill. They are brought from the Cape of Good Hope. 



Standing near its more brilliant sisters, quietly emitting the odors 

 that makes fragrant all the air about, is the heliotrope, a flower as 

 sweet as the word of which it is emblamatic, "devotion." Heliotrope, 

 derived from two Greek words meaning "sun" and "to turn," was the 

 name given to this plant, because it was supposed to turn continually 

 to the sun. The origin of the flower is ascribed to the death of 

 Clytic, who pined away from hopeless love of the sun god, Apollo. 

 Nine days she sat upon the ground, it is said, with her eyes riveted on 



