552 THE GARDENER. [Dec. 



A PLEA FOR THE PENTSTEMON. 



As a pleasant, easy-to-cultivate, free-flowering, joy-giving, summer- 

 blooming plant, give me the Pentstemon. I have a posy of them 

 before me now, — pretty, glistening, varicoloured flowers, the produce 

 of the side-shoots of my plants, that have unfolded their flowers despite, 

 and apparently regardless of, the frost : they and the Chrysanthemums, 

 with an occasional tea-scented Rose on a wall, are all I now have left 

 me as a bequest of summer. 



If Messrs Downie, Laird, & Laing had done nothing else in the 

 way of the improvement of florists' flowers than the Pentstemon, 

 they would have deserved well of the lovers of flowers. They 

 took the Pentstemon in hand some years ago, and year by year they 

 give us a batch of new varieties as beautiful as they are varied. At 

 Edinburgh, as in London, they raise batches of seedlings ; and they 

 alone of florists in the United Kingdom have taken this flower in hand 

 and brought it up to its present high pitch of excellence. This at 

 least is certain, that, as far as my own knowledge can be trusted, this 

 is the only firm that annually furnishes a batch of new flowers. 



Despite its beauty, freedom of bloom, and the ease with which 

 it is brought to a high state of perfection, it is surprising that the 

 Pentstemon is so little grown. Amateur cultivators of gardens cannot 

 be aware of the beauty and usefulness of this plant, or they would grow 

 it. The Pentstemon ought to be grown ; the Pentstemon deserves to 

 be grown. I began a few years ago by obtaining a batch of plants 

 from Messrs Downie, Laird, & Laing in the early spring, and year 

 by year I get a few more ; but as I obtain, I also discard, by weeding 

 out varieties that I think surpassed by others that have put in appear- 

 ance at a later date. But I don't destroy the discarded plants. When 

 the time comes to do this, I turn floricultural almsgiver, and make a 

 present of some of them to the poor cottagers that reside near me ; and 

 now many a cottage garden has an eruption of Pentstemon flowers 

 during the summer. They are carefully tended, and treasured as 

 sacredly as some cultivator of Orchids does a magnificent new Oncidium 

 or a splendid Dendrobium. I don't deprive Messrs Downie & Co., or 

 any other nurserymen, of a single order, but who shall estimate the 

 value of the gratification the culture of these flowers affords these poor 

 cottagers 1 



"To perpetuate the named kinds," states a modern writer, "the 

 plants must be propagated from cuttings, and it is best to resort to 

 this practice annually, which will allow of the destruction of all the old 

 plants as soon as the bloom is over, and sufficient cuttings have been 

 obtained. To keep old plants through the winter entails a certain 



