ORNAMENTAL PLANTS 



487 



single flowered variety is the white Cherokee rose, native to the 

 Orient. 



The GERANIUM, so frequently used both as an indoor and 

 outdoor ornamental, is a South African plant (fig. 302). Gera- 

 niums have irregular flowers with two petals larger than the 

 others. The Geranium Family (Geraniaceae) includes a few native 

 wild flowers such as wild geranium, herb Robert and storksbill. 



The Spurge Family (Euphorhiaceae) , in which we find the 

 important para rubber tree (see p. 360), includes Poinsettia, a 



Fig. 302. — Geranium 

 is a South African plant 

 with showy clusters of 

 slightly irregular flowers. 



Fig. 303. — Poinsettia is a 

 Mexican plant with small 

 flowers surrounded by showy 

 red bracts. 



Mexican plant which has becomevery popular within recent years 

 (fig. 303). Poinsettias have small and inconspicuous flowers 

 which are surrounded by conspicuously colored red leaves. 

 Poinsettias are outdoor shrubs in Florida and California, and 

 are grown, in the northern states, in greenhouses for Christmas 

 trade. 



One of the most brilliantly flowered members of the Mallow 

 Family is the Hibiscus, which comes from China and Japan. It is 

 cultivated out-of-doors in our southern states where it becomes a 

 tall shrub with showy large red flowers, each with a projecting 

 scarlet column of pistil and stamens. Rose of Sharon is also 



