508 XEW JERSEY AGEICULTURAL COLLEGE 



NOTES UPON ORNAMENTAL PLANTS. 



The white-fringed phlox was grown for its third season, and some 

 seed of this interesting cross has been saved and young plants started 

 for next year's study. 



Seeds of the morning glories that had been "hand-pinched" for 

 nine generations were grown for two generations in the Gardens. 

 With the aid of the greenhouse, in winter, three crops can be procured 

 in a year. The experiment of removing the tips of the stalks results in 

 bushy plants that produce an abundance of flowers near the ground. 

 Last winter a plant only a foot high thus treated bore four full-sized 

 flowers at the same time and a photograph was secured of it. The 

 tendency to twine was very strong in the plants in the open, and 

 unless closely watched the neglected plants will attain to great height. 

 As all the plants under treatment were of the same stock, the flowers, 

 often showing in hundreds, were with exactly the same markings. 



Some attention was paid to the evening primroses and hybridization 

 was attempted with several species. The species Oenothera Lamarck- 

 iana Ser., in which Dr. De Tries has found so many "mutants" — that 

 is, strongly-marked forms that he calls new species — ^has been grown in 

 some quantity, and one plant among them showed a marked deviation 

 from the type. 



The study of varying forms led to the setting out of a long row of 

 the common dandelion, all gathered from the paths of the Gardens, 

 and each of the twenty plants showing a marked difference from any 

 of the others. In like manner a row of daisies was transplanted from 

 a neighboring field, each of the dozen plants being of a quite distinct 

 form from the others. One of these was so peculiar as to have all the 

 ray flowers, although white, of the tubular shape of the yellow ones 

 in the center of the head. 



A large amount of cross-pollinating was done between the "Marsh 

 Mallow," growing in the Gardens, and the "Eose of Sharon," in neigh- 

 boring grounds. Perhaps two per cent, of the seed capsules of the 

 hand-worked blossoms remained intact and produced seed. In this 

 instance the union, if secured, is between a stout, herbaceous perennial 

 that dies to the ground in autumn and a shrub of the ordinary type. 



"Work is in progress for increasing, by selection, the percentage of 

 foxglove plants that produce the large, bell-shaped blooms as a mon- 

 strositv at the ends of the flowering stems. 



