May 29, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



219 



been omitted as rare, although, of course, he cannot know 

 this. In completeness the book is much inferior to such a 

 manual as Gray's Field, Forest and Garden Botany, which 

 includes all the ordinary cultivated plants as well as most 

 of our native ones. If Mrs. Dana's book has any advantage 

 over an ordinary manual of botany in enabling readers to 

 identify wild flowers, this comes from the fact that in it 

 the flowers are classified according to their colors ; that 

 is, rather more than a hundred pages are given to 

 plants with white flowers, then seventy-five to those with 

 yellow flowers, sixty to pink flowers, twenty to red flow- 

 ers, sixty to blue and purple flowers and about a score 

 more to flowers which are classified as miscellaneous. The 

 flowers are arranged something in the order of their opening ; 

 that is, the earliest ones of each color are described first. 

 Thus, when the student comes across a red flower in mid- 

 summer he has only to look in the list of that color among 

 the flowers that bloom at that season, and if he finds the 

 picture of it and the description he is made happy ; if he 

 misses them he wishes for better luck next time. One 

 would hardly expect to make any great advance in knowl- 

 edge by following this go-as-you-please plan, but we are 

 assured that many people have carried this book into the 

 country for a summer and have really discovered the names 

 of a good many plants. Let us hope that many of these 

 may be stimulated into something like a systematic obser- 

 vation of the vegetable life about them. If the book helps 

 in any degree to encourage habits of observation., or if it 

 leads to an unaffected admiration for the beauty of flowers 

 and shrubs and trees it v\'ill be worth many times what it 

 costs to any reader. 



China Asters. Bulletin 90 : Horticultural Department of 

 Cornell University Experiment Station. 



This compact little monograph is something of a novelty 

 in the way of information from one of our agricultural ex- 

 periment stations. In some prefatory remarks Professor 

 Bailey discourages the habit of setting formal flower-beds 

 in the midst of a lawn, because the flowers destroy 

 the freedom and breadth of the lawn by cutting it into 

 patches and by introducing brilliant colors and an appear- 

 ance of activity and fidget where everything should be 

 subdued, quiet and reposeful. At the same time a broad 

 stretch of greensward about the bed is the worst possible set- 

 ting if the flowers are to be seen to the best advantage. Pro- 

 fessor Bailey advises having flowers in lavish supply, but in 

 small places he would plant them as borders along a rear walk 

 or against a building. He might have added that there were 

 certain perennials, and even annuals, that can be sparingly 

 planted among the shrubs that border a lawn, although a long, 

 highly colored edging of flowers as the boundary of a lawn 

 may do almost as much to disquiet it as a mass of Coleus set 

 well within it. He might have added, too, that in large places 

 flowers never look more beautiful than when hedged within 

 some formal enclosure where the gardener can gratify his taste 

 for geometry and have the great bulk of his flowering annuals 

 and perennials massed, not only so that they can be more con- 

 veniently cared for, but so that they can be arranged to pro- 

 duce brilliant effects without distracting attention from scenery 

 of a more placid character. 



On account of their easy culture, freedom of bloom and 

 variety of form and color, these China Asters are among the 

 very best of annuals for popular use, and they have the advan- 

 tage of being at their best in the late season when the greater 

 part of the perennials are spent and they carry a profusion of 

 bloom until winter sets in. 



After a brief history of the evolution of the China Aster from 

 the species Calhstephus hortensis, or, as Professor Bailey pre- 

 fers to call it, Callistemma hortense, the different classes are 

 described with considerable detail. No eftbrt at an exhaus- 

 tive classification is attempted, for this is plainly impracticable. 

 Vilmorin divides the varieties into the pyramidal growers and 

 the non-pyramidal, but Professor Bailey suggests as a service- 

 able scheme a separation into two sections : those in which the 

 florets are open or flat, and those in all but two or three of the 

 outer rows of florets are tubular or quilled. 



The FL.A.T-RAYED Section.— This section may be divided into 

 two classes : (i) Those with ball-shaped flowers, and (2) those 

 with flat or recurved flowers. In the first class are included 

 Truffaut's Paeony-flowered Asters, one of the oldest and best 



of the types, moderately tall and vigorous plants, somewhat 

 pyramidal in habit, with small globular and nodding flowers in 

 many colors. La Superbe is one of the best strains of this 

 type. Semple's strain also belongs to the Globe class, so does 

 tlie Jewell, a strain of rather dwarfer habit than the Semjile 

 and flowers less incurved than the Truffaut strain, with short 

 petals and compact symmetrical heads. Triumph is another 

 dwarf Globe-flowered Aster, but it does not seem to have 

 been well fixed in habit as some of the flowers are Chrysan- 

 themum-shaped. 



The second or reflexed class of this section includes the so- 

 called Chrysanthemum-flowered strain, the plants having 

 various habits and various merits, and very useful in inany 

 colors. The Washington Aster is an offshoot from this strain, 

 and so is the more refined Mignon, with plants of medium 

 height, flowers more regular in shape than the Victorias, 

 which are free-blooming and both tall and dwarf. The Em- 

 peror, in various colors, is a tall-growing, late-flowering strain ; 

 the plants branch sparingly and carry from three to five 

 large Chrysanthemum-shaped flowers. Queen of the Mar- 

 ket, and the varieties of this type called Queen of Spring 

 and Queen of the Earliest, will bloom in August when the seed 

 is sown out-of-doors. They have a free, widespreading habit, 

 with long stems, which makes them useful for cutting. The 

 Candelabra group is somewhat like this, but later. The 

 Crown or Cocardeau strain is medium or semi-dwarf, flower- 

 ing early and abundantly. The centre of the flower is white, 

 surrounded by a fringe of various-colored rays, and the cen- 

 tral florets are somewhat tubular, so as to suggest the quilled 

 section, with which they are connected. The Comet is, 

 perhaps, the best of this class, if not the best of all China 

 Asters, with its loose open flowers and long strap-shaped rays. 

 Its color was not quite satisfactory at first, since the pink-tinted 

 florets faded out into a dingy white, but the rose-colored and 

 blue-flowered kinds, which appeared later, were improve- 

 ments, and the clear white one introduced in 1892 by Vilmorin 

 is altogether satisfactory. Occasionally these Comet Asters 

 sport into an inferior form with a loose border and an open 

 centre. They are not so useful for cut flowers as some of the 

 larger-stemmed and rounder-flowered types. Finally, there 

 is the Imbricated type, sometimes known as Imbricated 

 Pompon, which is intermediate between the flat-rayed and 

 quilled section. The rays are approximately alike, short and 

 ratlier concave, springing from a tubular base. The heads are 

 medium or small in size, but close and uniform in shape. The 

 plants are sometimes dwarf and sometimes tall, but the habit 

 is always compact, and it is a distinct and desirable strain. 



The Tubular or Quilled Section. — This section is di- 

 vided into (i) the Button-quilled and (2) the Long-quilled or 

 Needle Asters. The first division, with inner florets short and 

 outer ones longer and flat, is represented by the German 

 quilled in many colors, sometimes with drooping flowers, but 

 mostly with tall and branching growth on long stiff steins. 

 Dwart Bouquet also comes in many colors. This strain grows 

 only six or eight inclies high, with a terminal cluster of small 

 dense heads, with the centre florets short and tubular and a 

 thin fring-e of flattish rays. These are good for borders for 

 formal effects. Shakespeare is much like them, but the flowers 

 are most distinctly quilled. The second division of this sec- 

 tion, with all the florets elongated and quilled, is represented 

 by the Victoria Needle type, which has no rays whatever, but 

 all the range and brilliancy of coloring of the Victoria type and 

 long quill-like florets. Lilliput is a "late and pretty strain in 

 many colors, with small flowers and slender compact quills 

 and tall plants. 



The bulletin concludes with a list of 250 varieties oftered by 

 American seedsmen this year, the trade names being given 

 without any attempt to determine the synonyms. Very few 

 cultural directions are given, because few are needed. Seeds 

 can be sown indoors or in a frame as early as the middle of 

 April in this latitude if plants are to be grown in pots as speci- 

 mens for exhibition, but where they are to be grown in borders 

 it is quite as well to sow the seed where the plants are to grow. 

 Last year the seeds of fifty varieties were sown at the Cornell 

 gardens on the 4th ofjune, in which, notwithstanding the pro- 

 longed drought, every variety gave a profuse bloom through- 

 out September and October. Few insects prey upon these 

 plants. Their most serious difficulty is the rust which attacks 

 the underside of the leaf and raises an orange-colored pustule. 

 Timely spraying with ammoniacal carbonate of copper will 

 keep this disease in check. A nozzle should be used which 

 can throw the spray upward so as to strike the underside of 

 the leaf. The first application should be made before the 

 fungus appears, and it should be repeated every week or ten 

 days. 



