* CHOICE GARDEN FLOWERS 33 



common name nor the botanical "tropaeolum" 

 lends itself easily to the versifier's require- 

 ments. 



As for its colors, I once knew a man who, 

 while enjoying the fragrance of nasturtiums, 

 hated the sight of them. "Yellow dogs," he 

 called them but that was years ago, before the 

 nasturtiums had suffered a sea change into 

 something rich and strange. From Colombia 

 came a new species, the Tropaeolum lob- 

 bianum, with red flowers, some of them so 

 dark as to be almost black. By hybridizing 

 these with the yellows the seedsmen got nas- 

 turtiums of almost all the colors of the rainbow, 

 with fascinating stripes and blotches and shades 

 in endless variety. Scarlet, bronze, cherry red, 

 chocolate, creamy white, purplish crimson, 

 blush rose these and other colors you will find 

 represented in named varieties in the seed 

 catalogues. 



Don't order any yellows; you will have 

 them anyway, because some of the flowers 

 revert to the parental colors. As Luther Bur- 

 bank remarks, "It is exceedingly difficult to 

 keep the colors of the various nasturtiums 

 separate." That doesn't worry me. I like par- 

 ticularly the French chameleon and the hybrids 

 of Madam Gunter (also French), offering a 

 wide range of exquisite colors and beautiful 

 markings on the same plants. The loveliest 

 nasturtiums I ever had were the "Coquettes" 



