ANNUAL POPPIES. 



times called P. Murselli. — The Carna- 

 tion Poppy of American seedsmen, dif- 

 fers from paeoniflorum in having the 

 petals straighter and fringed at the ends. 

 The range of colors is even greater than 

 in the peony form, many of them having 

 special names. Of these the best known 

 is the " Mikado," a very showy flower, 

 white, margined with rose pink, very 

 double and finely fringed ; it varies in 

 shade of pink, some of them being much 

 darker than others. 



Another good form is Snowball, also 

 called Snowdrift and White Swan. Very 

 double, as round as a ball, finely fringed, 

 and as white as snow. 



" Fairy Blush " is a creamy white just 

 tipped at the end of the petals with rose 

 pink. 



Pink Pet, sent out to customers for 

 trial by W. A. Burpee & Co-, is a very 

 much improved Mikado. The strain is 

 not well fixed yet, as many of them do 

 not come true to color. When true they 

 are quite round, very finely fringed and 

 of a most beautiful shade of pink. A 

 very desirable variety that will supplant 

 Mikado. 



Chamois-rose, new last year, is the 

 best of the fimbriatums ; perfectly dou- 

 ble and a charming color, a pink with a 

 dash of yellow in it, decidedly the finest 

 double poppy in my collection this year. 



SMALL DOUBLE POPPIES. 



Sometimes P. Lcevigatum comes semi- 



double, but with this exception all the 

 smaller double poppies belong to the 

 genus Rhieas. The Ranunculus poppy, 

 P. Rka-as fl.pl., has all the graceful- 

 ness of the single form with a wonderful 

 diversity of color, white and every im- 

 aginable shade of pink and red with 

 dark stamens in every degree of double- 

 ness from 2 or 3 extra rows of petals to 

 perfectly double. 



The varieties umbrosum and Shirley 

 frequently show a tendency to come 

 double, though never so perfectly double 

 as the Ranunculus. 



The Rosebud is a selection from the 

 Ranunculus, very double and more com- 

 pact than the average Ranunculus 

 poppy- 

 Golden Gate is a mixture of umbro- 

 sum, hnngatum and Ranunculus in sin- 

 gle and double. The New Japanese 

 pompone is evidently also a selection 

 from the Ranunculus poppy. Of those 

 I grew this year the greater part were a 

 poor strain of Ranunculus flowered with 

 a few very beautiful pink flowers resem- 

 bling double Hollyhocks, with the broad 

 outer petals projecting half an inch be- 

 yond the narrow inner ones. If selected 

 to this type it would be a very desira- 

 ble addition. 



R. B. Whyte. 



Ottawa, Ont. 



To Mature Unripe Tomatos. — Ac- 

 cording to M. Chemin in the Annals of 

 the Horticultural Society of the Depart- 

 ment of Haute-Marne, the following 

 simple expedient suffices to ripen off a 

 crop of Tomatos. If the weather has 

 been unfavorable for ripening of the fruit, 

 the plants should be pulled up when the 

 most of the fruits have reached full size. 



and laid horizontally on a layer of clean 

 straw in a sunny place, and without any 

 further trouble the fruits become com- 

 pletely ripe, and retain their peculiar 

 fine flavor. In this country, we do 

 much the same kind of thing, with the 

 difference that the plants are put under 

 some kind of glass protection. 



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