THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



165 



Tree Paeonia Queen Elizabeth. 



an inch below the surface, for the 

 frosts will be sure to raise them up. 



Paeonias seed freely and if the seed 

 is sown as soon as ripe and the little 

 plants kept in a cold frame the fol- 

 lowing winter and planted out in the 

 spring, they will flower the second 

 year. For the commercial florist it is, 

 however, much better to buy roots of 

 both these and the tree section. 



The Tree Paeonia, as its name im- 

 plies, more nearly resembles a shrub 

 and the flowers surpass in beauty 

 those of the herbaceous section, but 

 are not so useful to the florist. They 

 make beautiful specimens for the lawn, 

 either singly or in groups. They are 

 largely used to force for conservatory 

 decoration, and are a valuable addi- 

 tion to our Easter plants, though they 

 can be forced as early as January. 

 For forcing, good plants should be 

 selected in the early spring and pot- 

 ted into good sized pots or tubs and 

 grown the following summer; then 

 they will force with ease and satisfac- 

 tion the coming winter. 



You cannot divide the tree paeonia 

 at the root as you can those of the 

 herbaceous section, they being grafted, 

 .an operation you had better leave to 

 the specialist. 



PALMS. 



These are our chief ornaments in 

 the conservatory of the wealthy, or 

 the room or veranda of the more hum- 

 ble home. As fine ornamental plants 

 they stand pre-eminently at the head. 

 For many years they have been grown 

 in hot-houses and conservatories, but 

 it is only within thirty years that they 

 became the plant for the million. In 

 Europe hundreds of acres of glass is 

 devoted to their culture and a very 

 .large area of glass in this country is 



now occupied with the raising of hun- 

 dreds of thousands of small palms for 

 the commercial trade. The writer is 

 one who has never seen the palms 

 flourish in the tropics, but I have seen 

 many species in the Botanic Garden 

 of Kew, where you have to ascend a 



with dark skins, a hot climate, croco- 

 diles and poisonous insects, and the 

 resident Caucasian among them would 

 doubtless often sigh for his native ma- 

 ple, pine, oak or hickory, or a handful 

 of his childhood's flowers, the prim- 

 rose, heather, golden rod, or trillium. 



A palm of medium size, say a kentia 

 with a stem of three or four feet and 

 perfect leaves, or a latania with a 

 spread of ten feet and perfect, is much 

 handsomer to me than the large but 

 well kept specimens at Kew. Large 

 specimens of the cocoanut palm, 

 Phoenix dactylifera, Caryota urens, 

 Latania borbonica, and others, we can 

 remember as long as we can tops and 

 marbles, but there are several of our 

 most useful palms that were not then 

 introduced. 



As a small ornamental plant to 

 adorn the living room, there is noth- 

 ing, either in beauty or hardiness, that 

 compares with the palm, and it is 

 these qualities that make it so uni- 

 versally popular, and it is a popular- 

 ity that there is not the slightest fear 

 will ever recede. Years ago fine speci- 

 mens were grown to be looked at, ad- 

 mired and discussed, and rarely seen 

 in small, uesful sizes. Now they are 

 used everywhere and on all occasions. 

 Besides the universal use of them to 

 adorn the lawn and veranda in sum- 

 mer and the drawing room and parlor 

 in winter, they are now seen at every 

 social function, marriages and funer- 

 als, receptions, dances, orations and 

 commencements, store openings, dog 



Latania Borbonica. 



spiral staircase to get a good view of 

 these giants of the tropics. 



Grand and noble they may be with 

 their gigantic leaves and plumed 

 heads towering up 80 or 100 feet high, 

 and novel and majestic they must first 

 appear to the traveler from the tem- 

 perate zones, but they are associated 



shows, and Midway plaisances; some 

 of the performances in the latter re- 

 sorts being peculiarly Oriental, the 

 palm is a most appropriate adjunct to 

 the tropical dance, etc. 



Palms are widely distributed over 

 the warmer parts of the globe, and 

 the natives of these regions have 



