162 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



U. S. Simpkins. He was an expert, a might_y man, and 

 any of vou wlio ha\e ever crossed swords with him at 

 an exhibition knew you were up against it when you 

 had to compete with him, in whatever line, not exclud- 

 ing Xymphaeas and other aquatic plants. To him I 

 give the palm, not only as one of the best growers, 

 but as one of our foremost hybridists. It was he who 

 produced one of our grandest and best of hardy Nym- 

 phaeas and I am proud of having named that grand 

 varietv X. Jas. Brydon in honor of him. 



I must again refer to our worthy chief who has 

 crossed the great divide — John A. I'ettigrew — who 

 made for himself a name in Chicago. He moved on 

 from there to Milwaukee and constructed lily ponds 

 there. He eventually returned East and was superin- 

 tendent of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N. Y., where a 

 system of ponds were constructed and are to this day 

 tiie pride of Brooklynites and all lovers of horticulture. 

 Mr. Pettigrew eventually moved on to Boston where 

 he continued his active work in horticulture and he 

 left these works as a monument to his memory. 



I must not omit to mention another worthy amateur 

 who also played his part in promoting the culture and 

 spread of aquatic lore, S. C. Nash, of Clifton, N. J. He 

 turned a swamp into a veritable paradise and in addi- 

 tion to this he constructed a tropical garden and here 

 were grown some of the finest specimens of X'ictorias, 

 the most beautiful of all water lilies, N. Gigantea and 

 many other species. He was also a masterhand with 

 the camera and many beautiful pictures and photo- 

 graphs of the water garden are his workmanship. 

 George \". Xash, of the Bronx Botanical Gardens, is a 

 son of S. C. Nash. These gardens are the pride of 

 New Yorkers and the water gardens and pool are visit- 

 ed bv thousands in the season and are not surpassed by 

 others in the United States. 



In the central states aquatic gardening has its devo- 

 tee in the person of E. T. liarvey, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 

 an artist who has for several years had a charming pool 

 eiifectively planted and heated by a simple device, using 

 gas for heating. Here are to be seen fine specimens of 

 A'ictoria together with other tropical Nymphaeas and 

 Xelumbiums. 



I have left the name of one to the last to mention 

 because I feel that through him we arrive at tlie pin- 

 nacle or climax of Xymphaeas. His name may be un- 

 known to many of you, but it was my privilege to 

 work side by side with him. He was a student in the 

 University of Pennsylvania; he was fired with a love 

 for the water liUes and it was his privilege and oppor- 

 tunity to visit the water gardens at their nurseries at 

 Riverton, X". J., when I was in charge of the same. 

 Here he could study the many species and forms which 

 only added to the " difficulty, as there was a maze of 

 names so synonymous that it was chaotic. He was 

 assisted by the University to visit Europe and with 

 letters of 'introduction was admitted to Kew, the Na- 

 tional Museum and similar institutions on the Con- 

 tinent and examined the ancient herbariums and manu- 

 scripts. Nothing like a complete synopsis of the water 

 lilies had been put before the English speaking world 

 until this working student, Henry S. Conard, returned 

 from Europe and wrote his symposium or monograph 

 of Genus Xymphaea and which was published by The 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1905. I regret 

 very much that Dr. Conard has left this field of re- 

 search and is now located at Grinnell, Iowa, in some 

 other field of exploration. He is the author of the 

 book "Water Lilies and How to Grow Them." He also 

 contributed much on the Nymphaeas for Bailey's Cy- 

 clopedia of Horticulture. 



PELARGONIUM "CLORINDA." 



Bv ClI.VKLES II. TOTTV. 



The iUustration shows a well-grown plant in an 8-inch 

 pot of this little-known Pelargonium. The plant when 

 photographed carried three humlred and twenty trusses 

 of Oowers, four feet across, and was three to three and 

 one-half feet liigh, and had given a continuous succession 

 of bloom froPii the first week of February to the middle 

 of June. This ]3lant was grown about eighteen months 

 from the time the cutting was inserted in the sand until 

 the picture was taken by James Fraser, superintendent 

 of the Cedarcourt Estate at Alorristown, X. J. 



In addition to the bright rosv cerise flowers which 



PELAUnOXlUM "Cr.ORTXn.V." 



made a wuniderfully attractive plant, the deep green 

 foliage has a delightful fragrance when crushed in the 

 hand. I feel sure if more of your readers were acquainted 

 with this Pelargonium they would make it a point of 

 having at least half a dozen plants for cutting and con- 

 servatory decoration. It cannot in any sense be called 

 new, anil yet it has almost disappeared from cultivation. 

 With the genera! broadening of horticulture many vari- 

 eties of plants such as this Pelargonium will come to the 

 surface and c\'entuallv be recognized at their true worth. 



THE PLANT THAT COUGHS. 



That there are meat eating plants is generally known, 

 but that there are also plants that cough — not figurative- 

 ly, but in the true, literal sense of the word — will be sur- 

 prising to most readers. Indeed, to the researches of a 

 I'rencli botanist we owe the description of a plant grow- 

 ing in certain tropical regions which obviously "coughs" 

 like a human being. The plant externally is in many re- 

 spects related to our common bean. It is very sensitive, 

 and shows a strange dislike of every kind of dust. No 

 sooner do a few grains of dust settle on its leaves, and 

 thereby irritate the air chambers of the sheath scale, 

 which represent the organs of breathing, than these or- 

 gans fill with a kind of gas, swell up and then explosively 

 reject the gas, whereby the dust is expulsed. But this ex- 

 plosion produces a sound that has a striking resemblance 

 to the cough of a child that has caught a cold. The 

 stranger who, in the midst of the wilderness, hears the 

 sound, involuntarily looks about for some man or animal, 

 and discovering, of course, nowhere a living being that 

 might have coughed, will be seized with the uncanny feel- 

 ing of the presence of some spook. 



