AND THE WILDERNESS BLOSSOMED 



and whether hardy, half hardy, or tender. Every 

 plant should be entered under its proper botan- 

 ical name, with cross references from the common 

 name. I know of but two seedsmen who in- 

 variably do this. One enters a flower always as 

 Candytuft, while in another's catalogue you 

 must look for it under the head of Iberis, and it 

 is common also to see the perennial varieties of 

 some species entered under the botanical name, 

 while the annuals are found under the common 

 title in the same catalogue. I have three cat- 

 alogues before me now in which one flower is 

 entered as Mirabilis, another has it headed Four- 

 o'clock, while in the third you will find it under 

 the head of Marvel of Peru. 



The description should be written in plain 

 English, and not always in the superlative 

 degree. The compiler having exhausted all his 

 adjectives of praise on the ordinary or even 

 inferior flowers has nothing left with which to 

 describe plants of real merit. There is entirely 

 too much indiscriminate praise given to all sorts 

 of inferior plants, and when a flower is too in- 

 significant to excite the enthusiasm of the cat- 

 aloguer he generally says " it is stately," if 

 tall, or if dwarf, he falls back on the assertion 



266 



