166 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 
It is impossible always to draw the line between shrubs and 
herbaceous plants, just as the line cannot be always marked 
between shrubs and vines. Many things that are ordinarily 
herbaceous occasionally become woody. 
Acalypha. <A genus of plants containing a number of species 
or varieties with richly variegated leaves. The names are in 
some confusion in the catalogues so that it is sometimes difficult 
to understand what is meant and the descriptions in the books 
are too brief and vague. If I identify A. wilkesiana correctly 
the leaves are broadly ovate and decidedly, though sometimes 
bluntly, acuminate, not at all cordate, but often one-sided and 
contorted. They arestrongly and bluntly serrate, have a ground- 
work of coppery or bronzy green, are variegated with a light and 
dark shade of red, and within this red are angular flecks or mosaics 
of the groundwork. Sometimes a whole leaf will be bronzy red- 
dish or greenish; in fact the diversity of color is very great. A 
form which may be macafeana has leaves which are sometimes 
almost cordate; they are broadly ovate and acuminate but not 
so drawn out as in the last. It may be said that they are light: 
red blotched with bronzy crimson or the reverse, and sometimes 
the bronzy crimson becomes bronzy green. There is a variety 
cultivated here with large cordate leaves which are usually deep 
bronzy red, or it may be splashed with light red, or the whole 
leaf may be the latter color. This may be triumphans. A. 
marginata has green, bronzy or reddish green leaves bordered 
with white or pink and A. godseffiana is much like it but is glossier. 
A form known as bicolor compacta has green leaves bordered 
with yellow and A. miltoniana has similarly marked but narrower 
and lacerated leaves. A. hispida bears long spikes of close set 
carmine flowers. All are from the East Indian region and are 
tender, A. marginata being hardiest. These are the poor man’s 
plants in lower Florida and there is scarcely a home here that is 
not brightened by some of them. 
Achimenes. Rather delicate plants with large salver-shaped 
flowers of considerable beauty which spring from scaly tubers. 
They make their growth in the warm season and during 
