Structural Characteristics 153 



In grandmother's garden the Iris blue 

 Unfurled his banner, his snood leaves drew 

 And marshalled the slim red Tulips tall, 

 The Peony's bursting crimson ball, 

 The Almond wands and the Moss Pinks small, 

 Buttercups spendthrift of their gold, 

 Columbines misers of sweets untold, 

 Gay Sweet Williams, and Four-O'Clocks, 

 Prodigal sheaves of the cool white Phlox. 



Anon.: Grandmother's Garden. 



A well-established plant will produce many spikes 

 of bloom, sometimes from 50 to 100 or more. Each 

 stem produces a number of buds, rarely less than four 

 or five, in the case of many varieties nine or more, 

 in a few instances (as, Perfection, Ring Dove) from 

 fifteen to twenty, and E. H. Reynolds has been known 

 to produce three dozen buds on a single spike. See 

 also under Rhizome, page 118. 



In the description of varieties, "free flowering" 

 and "floriferous" are sometimes used as if they were 

 synonyms. Strictly speaking, however, "free flower- 

 ing" refers merely to the number of flower-stems 

 produced by a plant, and "floriferous" refers to the 

 number of flowers produced on a single flower-stem. 

 Loreley is an example of free blooming, and Perfection, 

 Ring Dove and E. H. Reynolds (see paragraph above) 

 are examples of exceeding floriferousness. Virginia 

 Moore (see page 119 is an example both of free flower- 

 ing and of floriferousness. 



As a rule, extremely floriferous varieties do not bear 

 the largest flowers. For instance, none of the varieties 



