116 BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS 



later than the majority of the species. Botanists now class the 

 popular plant generally known as Harpalium rigidum as a 

 Helianthus, under the name of H. rigidus. Probably the old name 

 will cling to it for a considerable time, but the plant is likely to 

 be less and less grown, as the variety Miss Mellish is finer. 



Sweet Williams. -The Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus of 

 botanists, has always been a favourite garden flower, and it was 

 once by way of being a florist's flower on a modest scale, but 

 Roses, Dahlias, Sweet Peas, Carnations, Violas, and others had 

 greater merits, and gradually squeezed it into the background. 

 Nowadays it is rarely cultivated in the florist's ''grand style." It 

 is not specialised, and varieties with distinctive names to be 

 propagated by cuttings in order to keep them true, are extremely 

 rare. It is lumped with Wallflowers, Foxgloves, and Canterbury 

 Bells in the class of "useful hardy biennials," and seed is sown 

 out of doors about the end of May for flowering the following 

 year. But these same seedling plants yield a particularly fine 

 variety now and then, if the seed comes from a good source ; and 

 it should be known that a superior sort can be perpetuated much 

 more certainly by cuttings than by seeds. The shoots which grow 

 from the base of the plants in summer, and are free of flower 

 stems, are the only kind that there is any good chance of striking, 

 and even these require care and attention, owing to the fact that 

 they are taken in summer, when the weather may be hot and 

 dry. It is well to insert them in a cool, shady place, and to 

 moisten them if they show any signs of flagging. 



There are one or two varieties of Sweet William on the 

 market which come true from the seed. Among these is a beauti- 

 ful salmon pink, a very distinct, bright, and useful variety, dwarf 

 in habit, free-flowering, and well adapted for planting in borders. 

 One gets the best plants of it as, indeed, of all Sweet Williams 

 raised from seed when the seedlings are carefully thinned, and 

 the plants are put out nine inches apart in a nursery bed, there 



