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JUNB 14, 1906. 



Tfhc Weekly Florists^ Review* 



2i3 



The Salesroom of the Mair Store, Chicago, Photographed at Easter. 



ceive no harm by a liberal sprinkling. 

 Maidenhair fern, with which all designs 

 are finished oflf, is also kept fresh by 

 moisture, so it is evident that while some 

 flowers are unharmed and kept fresh 

 with a slight sprinkling, others when cut 

 will spot and disfigure with careless 

 sprinkling. There seems to be a mar- 

 velous difference in the handling of 

 flowers when deprived of life and when 

 growing, sustained by the vital force. 



Perhaps the proper answer to this 

 question is that the application of water 

 to flowers, either in a box for shipping 

 or arranged in a design, is to create a 

 mist-like moisture surrounding the 

 flowers. If you have created a moist 

 atmosphere it is about all the flowers 

 can absorb and drops of water on the 

 petals are more than they can absorb. 

 So apply your artificial mist or dew as 

 fine as possible. Try and create a sur- 

 rounding moisture without leaving drops 

 of water. 



There are other ways of packing de- 

 signs besides sprinkling. See that the 

 sphagnum moss is thoroughly moist and 

 there will for hours be evaporation of 

 moisture even if the stem or base of the 

 flower does not touch the damp moss. 

 W. S. 



ORIGIN OF PURITY FREESIA. 



Rudolph Fischer, Great Neck, L. I., 

 furnishes the following account of the 

 origin of Freesia Purity: 



"Freesia Purity is a seedling pro- 

 duced by hybridization. I got it in the 

 following manner: When I started in 

 business about fifteen years ago I re- 

 ceived from my former employer several 

 thousand freesia bulbs for planting on 

 my own place. These bulbs were an un- 

 usually good strain of the original F 



refracta alba. My employer got from 

 Europe a lot of very small bulbs, early 

 in the eighties, before the variety was 

 introduced in this country. He multi- 

 plied his stock from these, without buy- 

 ing any more from any outside source, 

 and in this way he kept his stock pure. 

 When I grew them, I started to hy- 

 bridize between the best, and produced 

 a number of good ones, which were ahead 

 of the general run. These I hybridized 

 again, and among the latter seedlings 

 was Purity. It showed its superiority 

 so prominently that after another year 

 I separated them and grew them by 

 themselves. ' ' 



NOTES FROM ENGLAND. 



May flowering tulips, especially Dar- 

 wins and cottage varieties, are rapidly 

 increasing in favor each year. These 

 tulips are found to grow and thrive year 

 after year in England in almost any 

 ordinary light garden soil, and it has 

 become quite the thing for leading nur- 

 serymen and seedsmen to have a full 

 representative collection. Barr & Sons 

 have probably the finest lot in Europe, 

 but there are other magnificent collec- 

 tions, some of the best being those of 

 Hogg & Kobertson, Dublin; W. T. Ware, 

 Bath; W. B. Hartland, Cork; A. Dick- 

 son, Belfast, and others. At the Royal 

 Horticultural Society's show May 16 no 

 fewer than fifteen firms exhibited trade 

 collections. The May section is particu- 

 larly useful, either for cutting or bed- 

 ding, there being little else in bloom at 

 the same time. Some of the Darwins 

 especially are extraordinarily fine in 

 form and deep in coloring. In Lincoln- 

 shire some sorts are grown by the acre 

 for market purposes. The sorts grown 



are Bouton D'Or, a rather small yellow; 

 Retroflexa, a beautiful clear sulphury 

 yellow with ends of the petals turning 

 back; Picotee, a white with red edge; 

 Gesneriana, a purple with black center. 

 These are the sorts used in immense 

 quantities for market, the others being 

 too expensive, although such sorts as 

 Mrs. Moon, yellow; Hobbema, pink; 

 Mark Groff and Admiral Constantinople, 

 both yellow and red variegated, and 

 Gesneriana lutea will soon be sufficient- 

 ly plentiful to be grown in quantity. 



I recently came across a large house 

 containing some thousands of the com- 

 paratively new Calla Elliottiana. I 

 hardly thought there was such a large 

 stock in England. They were in full 

 bloom, and the bright yellow gave an 

 unusually fine effect, the spotted leaves 

 showing up well. The grower informed 

 me that they are quite easily propagated 

 and grown from seed and quickly reach 

 a flowering size, the blooms fertilizing 

 themselves naturally; in fact, he said 

 that if the pollen is touched or even 

 the bloom shaken, so as to unnaturally 

 disturb the pollen, it results in a much 

 less percentage of good seed than if the 

 blooms are left alone. The seed is sown 

 in a little bottom heat, and with quite 

 ordinary treatment, ninety-eight per 

 cent will germinate. The yellow blooms 

 realize a fancy price compared with the 

 old white variety. 



At the Brussels meeting, in the State 

 Botanic Gardens, thirty 4-inch pots of 

 chrysanthemums were shown, each plant 

 with one large bloom on a single stem, 

 the variety being Mme. Mees. The 

 blooms were fully equal to any seen in 

 autumn and were a decided novelty. We 

 shall soon have mums on the market all 

 the year round. J. B. 



