ON THE WATSONIA 



what less hardy than the old one, and although it 

 thrives abundantly in the climate of California 

 it cannot as yet be grown satisfactorily in the 

 gardens of the northeastern United States. 



But there is one quality of the Watsonia, in its 

 perfected varieties, that puts it quite beyond rival- 

 ry of the gladiolus. It produces a beautiful snow- 

 white flower. As we have elsewhere noted, there 

 has been, until recently, no truly white gladiolus. 

 But the white of the Watsonia has been character- 

 ized as the "whitest white" in nature. 



In point of quality of its whiteness, this flower 

 is perhaps the only rival of the Shasta daisy. Each 

 of these flowers is of a snowy whiteness, undimmed 

 by the slightest trace of pigment. 



The original wild forms of Watsonia, to be 

 sure, are not white. On the contrary they are of 

 various hues of red and pink. But there is appar- 

 ently a spontaneous tendency to produce now and 

 again a white variant, for at least two, and per- 

 haps more, of these have been introduced from 

 South Africa that were probably of independent 

 origin. The white forms that are most familiar 

 under cultivation are so similar that they have 

 been thought to be identical, the origin of one of 

 them being somewhat in doubt. 



The white Watsonia whose origin is clearly 

 known is descended from a plant discovered about 



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