rS95' 



GARDENING. 



83 



ENGLISH HOLLYi 



and the surplus seedlings having been 

 given to a friend in the trade, the plant 

 was distributed this season as a novelty, 

 without suspicion of identity. Seeds were 

 also offered this year by W. Thompson, 

 of Ipswich, England, who is of course an 

 expert plantsman, and the identity of the 

 plants seem to have excited no suspicion. 



Visiting a friend late in Jul.v or early in 

 .\ugust last, I was very much surprised 

 to find what he enthusiastically claimed 

 as j-ellow cosmos, well in flower, on plants 

 about four feet high. Seeds of these he 

 had secured from some obscure southern 

 dealer. To settle the confusion 1 sent the 

 two plants to the Gray Herbarium of 

 Howard University, where they kindly de- 

 termined my plant as Bidens ferruhetolia 

 and the other as Cosmos sulplwreusCav- 

 nnilles. The growers who have the pros- 

 trate plant with golden yellow flowers 

 with five lancelike pointed petals, mav 

 with safety label it Bidens. The true C 

 stilphureus is a tall much branched plant 

 with yellow or orange flowers, in size and 

 form like C. bipinnatus, but the leaves 

 are not as finelv cut. J. N. (iERARi). 



Elizabeth, N."j. 



An English nurseryman says he g t 

 tlie seeds which he sent out last year from 

 St. Petersburg as C. stilphureus, but Sir 

 |. i). Hooker snvs it is Bidens liuiiiilis. 



Prof. Holm, of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, Washington, identified the piece 

 I send y u (and which Thomoson sent 

 us) as Bidens ferrulxfolia, and I believe 

 this is what it has also been identified as 

 at the Harvard University Herbarium. 

 But the figure of this in the Botanical 

 Magazine does not agree with it in the 

 ray florets. The piece of the true Cosmos 

 su'lphureus I send you is from the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, they got it from 

 Mexico last year, and it only flowered 

 this seasoti about two weeks ago, and 

 about the same time last vear. 



G. W. Oliver. 

 U. S. Botanical Garden, Washington, 

 D. C, Nov. 18. 



CflNNflS. 



The killing frosts have closed a season 

 for these magnificent plants which in this 

 vicinity at least has been an exceptionally 

 favorable one. Climatic conditions seemed 

 to suit them, and where water was ob- 

 tainable so as to be freely applied — for 

 cannas are hard drinkers— they have 

 grown with great vigor, so that many 

 kinds which have heretofore masqueraded 

 as dwarfs appeared to have joined the 

 "upper classes." This suggests the query 

 ■whether cannas of the new and desirable 

 sorts extensivelv propagated and grown 

 under glass, do not a])pear at their 



worst when first put out for general 

 outside growing. For two years 

 that grand canna Charles Hender- 

 son did so poorly with me that it was 

 with some misgiving I saved enough of it 

 to plant a clump of about twelve to fif- 

 teen plants, which have this season 

 grown to an average height of five feet, 

 have been a mass of bloom all summer, 

 the admiration of all who have seen 

 them and not surpassed by any other self 

 colored crimson variety known to me. 



Mr. Cowles' beautiful canna Mrs. Fair- 

 man Rogers seems to be undergoing a 

 like process. At some of the Mass. Hort. 

 exhibitions it has been shown in grand 

 form, but the inference is that it may 

 have been grownindoors;foraslhave ob- 

 served it this summer on the groimds of 

 ofmy neighbors, Messr. James Farquhar, 

 Denys Zirngiebel, and Arthur Fewkes, all 

 skillful florists, and on my own place in a 

 smaller way, it has been disappointing. 

 Just before the frost there came in flower 

 two spikes on one of my plants which 

 were simply perfection, and as the plants 

 have made a vigorous growth and fine 

 clumps I expect and believe, it will behave " 

 next season as Chas. Henderson has this. 

 If any of your readers who grow cannas 

 have observed traces of this climatizing 

 and hardening process it would be 

 pleasant to hear from them. 



The observations of the season just 

 closed lead to the conclusion that many 

 of the later sorts are doubtful improve- 

 ments over some of the well approved old 

 ones. Of the multitude of yellow bordered 

 crimsons it would be difficult to name one 

 superior to Mme. Crozy, when perfect 

 habit, vigor of growth and floriferousness 

 are considered. A few have more width 

 ol border, and of these Souvenir d'Antoine 

 Crozy and Oueen Charlotte appear to be 

 the best, and are both beautiful cannas. 

 A dwarf seedling of this type called Fairy 

 Oueen raised by Antoine Wintzer of West 

 Grove, Pa., has done well with me and is 

 worthy of another season's trial. Mr. 

 Wintzer's Aurora, Queen Charlotte 2nd 

 and Cjolden Gem, are all fine, the latter 

 nearly a pure yellow of good form and 

 substance and almost indistinguishable 

 from Mr. Westwood's "Florence Bar- 

 ker" which latter canna received a first- 

 elass certificate from the Mass. Hort. 

 Society. 



01 the older sorts, Florence Vaughan, 

 yellow, spotted red, Paul Marquant, 

 salmon tinted carmine, Charles Hender- 

 son, dark crimson, J. D. Cabos, dark 

 foliage, apricot colored flowers, President 

 Camot, pinkish shade of scarlet, perhaps 

 the test of the dark foliaged sorts. 

 Alphonse Bouvier, glowing crimson, are 

 all grand cannas of vigorous and healthy 

 habit, and perhaps as good as any of 

 their later rivals. Of those sent out this 

 season that I have had the opportunity 

 to observe, Columbia, F. K. I'ierson, 

 Chicago, Eldorado or Mme. Montefiore, 

 the two being with me indistinguishable, 

 are grand flowers and ot the approved 

 type. 



Some of the newer sorts not yet disfemi- 

 nated to any extent, are Mme. Bouvier, 

 apparently an improved Queen Charlotte, 

 Midway, of the type of Paul Marquant, 

 but better; J. W. Elliott, a beautiful large 

 flower of orange scarlet veined and shaded 

 pink; P. J. Berckmans, deep pink shaded 

 carmine, large flower, distinct and beauti- 

 ful, a decided acquisition; Mrs. F. L. 

 Ames, of the type of J. W. Elliott, with 

 lower petal more distinctly marked yel 

 low, a splendid flower, and a beaut'ifu 

 dwarf yellow, spotted red, of the Eldo 

 rado type but quite dwarf in habit an 

 large flowered. This is rightly name 



