20 



The Florists^ Review 



Mabch ], 1017. 



BEGONIA ALICE MANNING. 



The Alice Manning begonia belongs 

 to the tuberous-rooted section and makes 

 a grand basket plant. Kenneth McLean, 

 head gardener for John I. Kane, of Bar 

 Harbor, Me., grows it successfully, as 

 he does many other plants flowering in 

 the Bar Harbor season. By starting 

 tubers in February he has them in full 

 bloom, as shown in the accompanying 

 illustration, early in June, and other 

 tubers started at intervals up to April 

 1 give a succession of blooms until Sep- 



tember. The flowers retain their best 

 effect for more than a month. These 

 begonias are used entirely in hanging 

 baskets on the piazza of the mansion. 



The color of Alice Manning is prim- 

 rose-yellow and the flowers are double. 

 The culture and soil are the same as 

 for achimenes and gloxinias. Mr. Mc- 

 Lean grows Golden Sheaves and alba 

 plena of the same type, which do equally 

 well. These begonias should prove 

 valuable for gardeners and florists re- 

 quiring basket plants for piazza use. 



W. N. Craig. 



ODCN l^TTEa*)y^ KEADED6 



THE NATIONAL FLOWER AGAIN. 



A Subject That Will Not Down. 



hi all trades, professions or walks of 

 life we meet spooks. By spooks I mean 

 questions returning periodically, caus- 

 ing people to use a lot of printers' ink, 

 arousing excitement, making enemies of 

 friends and then often vanishing as 

 mysteriously as they appeared. Many 

 of them, however, after having been 

 voluminously discussed, finally take defi- 

 nite form and emerge from the realm of 

 spooks to become laws, customs or insti- 

 tutions, adopted or sanctione<l by so- 

 ciety. The national flower spook has ap- 

 peared in the columns of the horticul- 

 tural papers and I am prompted to make 

 a few remarks regarding it. 



Some of the State Flowers. 



There arc two factors that may lead 

 to the selection of a state or national 

 llower: Historical events and the de- 

 sire of the people not to lag beliind the 

 rest of the world through not having 

 such a national oinbleni. Some people 

 may say we ought to wait till some his- 

 torical event would give us a national 

 fiower, but modern people, especially 

 Americans, livo so fast that they can- 

 not patiently await such an event. 



Let us suppose, therefore, that the de- 

 sire for an arbitrarily designated na- 

 tional flower is justified. Great care 

 ought to be exercised in adopting one, 

 for we all want our new national flower 

 to be popular among all classes of peo- 

 ple. We do not want a national flower 

 that exists on paper only, like so many 

 of the state flowers. Who knows what 

 is the state flower of Oklahoma! The 

 people of Oklahoma do not know. The 

 school children and teachers may know. 

 It is no flower at all. It is a farm plant 

 — alfalfa. This fact would not bar it 

 from the list of successful state flowers. 

 Hasn't Scotland the much despised this- 

 tle as a national emblem? But alfalfa 

 will never be really popular in Okla- 

 homa, except among the bottom-land 

 farmers in dry years, when the chinch 

 bugs eat their wheat and the hot winds 

 burn their corn. 



The weedy, homely, much fought sun- 

 flower is the state flower of Kansas, and 

 a popular one, too. Many people out- 

 side of Colorado know that state's 

 fiower. It is the lovely columbine. 



Three Necessary Qualities. 



Tlic unpo[iularity of alfalfa and the 

 ])opularity of the two other state flow- 

 ers mentioned, may give us a few hints 

 regarding the selection of a national 

 flower. 



Begonia Alice Manning in Hanging Basket. 



Alfalfa blossoms are not strikingly 

 beautiful. I said "strikingly beauti- 

 ful, ' ' for all flowers are beautiful if you 

 look at them with the eyes of & lover 

 of nature. Alfalfa is not a native of 

 Oklahoma and is not even grown every- 

 where in the state. That is why alfalfa 

 is not a popular state flower. 



The reasons for the popularity of the 

 Colorado flower are its beauty and the 

 fact that it is a characteristic flower of 

 the Rocky mountains. No doubt, the 

 tourists also have helped to spread its 

 fame. 



The sunflower, on the other hand, is 

 not strikingly beautiful. Many people 

 regard it as an obnoxious weed and all 

 of us have to fight it occasionally. Yet 

 the sunflower has much popularity as a 

 state flower in Kansas, because it is so 

 characteristic of the Kansas plains. You 

 will know why the sunflower is so dear 

 to the heart of many a Kansan, if you 

 ever speed through the southwest, com- 

 fortably seated in the cushions of a Pull- 

 man or a large touring car, and see the 

 millions of sunflowers along the roads 

 and fences and in the cornfields, where 

 they intrude on the slovenly farmer. 



We thus have found three requisites 

 to the popularity of a state flower. It 

 must be beautiful, it must grow in all 

 parts of the territory it represents and 

 it must be characteristic of that terri- 

 tory. 



Some Candidates for Favor. 



The rhododendron has been proposed 

 as our national flower. I have seen the 

 Alleghenies in June and I shall never 

 forget the glorious sight. Whole moun- 

 tainsides were covered with rhododen- 

 drons and the blooms looked like a love- 

 ly pink veil spread lightly over the 

 glossy green of the foliage. But do we 

 want to force the people of Texas, North 

 Dakota and the whole west to accept as 

 their emblem a flower that they do not 

 know? They cannot even grow it in 

 their gardens, on account of the glaring 

 winter sun and the lime in the soil. 



The iris has been recommended as our 

 national flower. Few flowers are more 

 beautiful. Several species grow wild in 

 the United States. But the native irises 

 are not characteristic of the country in 

 general, because they love moist haunts. 

 Wide stretches of the country have no 

 native species at all. 



The gladiolus has a pull, as they call 

 it in politics. It will never do for our na- 

 tional flower. There is no native species, 

 at least east of the Rocky mountains, 

 and a foreign flower cannot become our 

 national flower. It is the grandest out- 

 door cut flower we have, but it cannot 

 be used generally as a garden flower, on 

 account of the sparse foliage and the 

 short duration of the individual flowers. 



Beautiful, But a Foreigner. 



The peony is another aspirant for the 

 honor of being our national flower. It 

 is beautiful, but it is a foreigner and 

 its blooming season is short. 



By the way, I do not see why a na- 

 tional flower ought to have a long, stiff 

 stem, so that we can "wave it in tri- 

 umph," as one writer has suggested. I 

 think the florists will agree with me 

 when I say that most flowers will be 

 worn in a buttonhole or as a corsage 

 bouquet, and few will be waved in tri- 

 umph. 



The goldenrod has been suggested as 

 a national flower. It has better claims 

 than all the flowers mentioned before. 

 It grows almost everywhere in the 



