258 



TH6 GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[September, 



bunda — a magnificent plant of good habit and 

 a most profuse bloomer; the flowers are rich violet 

 blue, between five and six inches in diameter, and 

 produced nearly all the year through. Impa- 

 tiens Sanderiana — the finest floral novelty of 

 the season. It is a superb plant of compact habit, 

 and very branching, perfectly covered with bril- 

 liant scarlet flowers which are individually i}4 inch- 

 es in diameter. This magnificent new introduction 

 was discovered by one of the collectors in Asia, 

 and I can confidently recommend it as one of 

 the finest novelties introduced for years. Collect- 

 ors saw plants eighteen inches high with three 

 hundred flowers. 



Gynura aurantiaca — a hardy plant of such or- 

 namental character as to allow of one's saying that 

 it is not surpassed by any other plant of the same 

 class. The stem and leaves are clothed their 

 entire length with a thick covering of hairs, soft 

 to the touch, and of a beautiful deep violet color 

 which gives an appearance of the richest velvet to 

 the plant, and when combined with the brilliant 

 orange of the flowers, the aspect of the plant is 

 truly superb. Considered the finest of bedding 

 plants. 



Sietzia Brasiliensis — this belongs to the ges- 

 neriaceous class of plants, and is a very curious 

 new plant with blue flowers beautifully spotted. 

 A very attractive trailing plant, lovely for basket, 

 with round pea-green leaves elegantly striped with 

 white, is Fittonia argyroneura. 



I am greatly pleased with a new Zonale gera- 

 nium, named Apple Blossom. There has long been 

 a very profuse blooming pelargonium with that 

 name, but this is a veritable Zonale, imported from 

 England about three years ago, but as yet little 

 known. Although mine is a wee plant, it has 

 been bearing for three weeks its second truss of 

 flowers, which are white suffused with rosy pink, 

 and, at a short distance, resemble the blossoms 

 for which it is very appropriately named. The 

 pips are so large on the small plant, I think that 

 on one well grown they must be of unusual size. 

 Other choice novelties I will defer to a future 

 article. 



SOME JULY BLOOMING PERENNIALS. 



BY B. 



Passing through my garden to-day, I was struck 

 with the beauty of several yellow flowered per- 

 ennials in bloom, and it occurred to me that much 

 of the interest of our borders, in the month of July, 

 comes from the blooming of flowers of this color. 

 The first to attract my attention, perhaps from the 



height the plant grows, for it was the tallest of the 

 lot, was the Heliopsis lasvis. It grows fully five 

 feet high, and its large flowers are very conspicu- 

 ous. The next I met, and a good one it is, was the 

 Chrysopsis villosa. This grows to a height of 

 three feet, is loaded with flowers always, and 

 blooms for a long time. A later blooming 

 species, C. Mariana, is equally as handsome. 

 The next I came to was the conspicuous Rud- 

 beckia hirta, which, although common in the fields 

 near by, I would not like to be without in my 

 border. Following this came Lysimachia ciliata, 

 one of the best of the genus, except perhaps, quad- 

 rifolia. If not mistaken, all our native Lysimach- 

 ias are yellow. Lepachys columnaris and Rud- 

 beckia trifolia came next under notice. The first 

 is very conspicuous, on account of its columnar 

 disk. 



Finishing my walk, I passed some nice plants of 

 Aquilegia chrysantha, still with a few flo.vers on, 

 as it will have for some time yet. I would not like 

 to be without these yellow flowers. 



CORNUS ALTERNIFOLIA. 

 BY E. L. 



Possibly what I am about to say may not be 

 news to the majority of your readers. I wish to 

 say, what a beautiful ornamental shrub is the 

 Cornus alternifolia, often called blue dogwood. 

 The flowers are not very attractive, and it is not 

 to them it owes its character, but chiefly to the 

 fruit, which when ripe in July and August, gives 

 to the shrub a character unapproached by any 

 other shrub I know. Even without the fruit it is 

 a pretty object, on account of the drooping habit 

 of its branches. The tendency of the shrub is to 

 become spreading, having what is termed a de- 

 pressed head. This makes the fruit, which is 

 usually borne in great profusion, quite conspicuous, 

 and is what gives the peculiarly desirable charac- 

 ter to the tree. The fruit itself is of a purplish blue 

 color and has reddish stems. This is in pleasing 

 contrast to the deep green of the leaves and 

 branches. 



There is not enough u^e made in landscape 

 gardening of trees and shrubs chiefly valuable for 

 their ornamental fruit. There is a great variety of 

 such sorts, and when it is remembered that their 

 chief attraction is in the late summer and fall 

 months, when flowers are generally scarce, it is an 

 additional reason for the more extended use of 

 them. 



[The vase-like form is unique. — Ed. G. M.] 



