FROM WILD TO GARDEN FLOWERS 



351 



varieties of wild peas and others of the same family 

 which it is better to study in that way than to cultivate 

 their relatives among the vegetables of the kitchen garden 

 important as the latter investigations may be and 

 really are. A very large number of geraniums have been, 

 in time, produced through selection and crossing, and 

 some of them are among the most beautiful of our gar- 

 den plants; (Fig. 5) and of the world's wild flowers, 

 more than an hundred species of geraniums have been 

 described by botani?is. They occur in the temperate re- 

 gions rather than in the tropics, and nearly twenty of 

 them are members of the North American flora. Many 



ORPINE OR LIVE-FOREVER 



Fig. 9. Orpine has many common names; in various localities 

 It is called pudding-bag plant, live-long, midsummer-men, 

 witches' money, and garden stone. It is a member of the Sedum 

 family. 



labor under the entirely wrong impression that our gar- 

 den geraniums were derived from our wild ones or com- 

 mon Crane's bill a beautiful plant with handsome pur- 

 plish flowers and shown here in Figure 6. But it may be 

 pointed out that our garden geraniums were all doubt- 

 less bred from the plants of the genus Pelargonium of 

 South Africa at least this appears to be the opinion of 

 our best informed botanists. To return to our wild gera- 

 nium, three of the elongate seedpods may be seen beneath 

 the central flower of the picture, and it is the form of 

 these seedpods which is responsible for the common name 



of Crane's bill by which this plant is widely known. In 

 the opinion of the writer, it is a far-fetched resemblance; 

 but then there are many others of a similar kind to be 

 met with all through the vocabulary of common and 

 scientific names of our wild flowers, together with not a" 

 few of the garden ones. A word in regard to the great 

 difficulty of securing photographs of the wild geranium 

 may not be out of place. In nature we rarely find it 



THE GARDEN LIVE-FOREVER 



Fig. 10. The leaves of the bladdervi'orts, or garden live-forever, 

 both the wild and the cultivated ones, may be made to swell up, 

 bladder-fashion, by simply holding one for a few moments in 

 the mouth. 



growing in a situation where a satisfactory exposure can 

 be made, while the slightest breeze will cause its delicate 

 stems to exhibit more or less motion usually more. 

 This compels us to try an indoors picture, such, for ex- 

 ample, as is seen in Figure 6. Now, this plant droops on 

 the very slightest provocation, and is sure to do so if 

 plucked and taken home in the usual way with other 

 flowers. The specimen here shown grew within two 

 minutes' brisk walk of the room in which the writer's 

 flower-photography was done. As perfect a specimen as 

 possible was first located; the background was all ar- 

 ranged; the plant was dug up with a generous amount 

 of sod and instantly placed in a bucket containing a 

 couple of inches of water, when, shaded by an umbrella, 

 it was rushed to the room where all was in readiness ' 

 even to the extent of focussing upon another plant, the 



