COMPOSITE FAMILY 



The Gaillardias of our gardens are the hybrids and variants of 

 two typical species, native to the warmer parts of the United States. 

 They easily rank among our best garden plants, producing as they 

 do masses of beautiful and effective flowers from midsummer until 

 late autumn. Lovers of the sun, they seem never to find our sum- 

 mers too hot and they also endure considerable cold; one often 

 finds belated blossoms in the Gaillardia bed when other plants are 

 prostrated by the frost. 



The cultivated forms are so varied and so confusing that it is 

 practically impossible to distinguish them. If your plant lives over 

 the winter you know it is of the cristata race; if, on the other hand, 

 it dies in the autumn, its dominant strain is pulchella. The most 

 satisfactory plan is to call them Gaillardias and let it go at that. 

 The color range is red, yellow, and orange, with shades of brown, 

 often brightened with a metallic, purplish tinge; these combina- 

 tions produce effects of startling bril- 

 liancy, each flower-head suggesting 

 a sunburst. 



Among Gaillardian virtues is that 

 of being excellent cut flowers; the 

 heads stand up on good self-respect- 

 ing stems and take water freely. 



ARCTOTIS 



Arctbtis grdndis. 



Arctotis, Greek, bear's ear; alluding 

 to the silky, shaggy akene. 



A remarkably handsome annual from 

 south-western Africa, of the daisy type, 

 forming much-branched bushy plants 

 which bear from early summer to late 

 fall beautiful white flowers. 



5tew.— Erect, much branched, two to three feet high, hollow, covered 

 with white woolly hairs. 



Lewves.~Th\ck, grayish-green, covered ^'with white woolly hairs above 

 and beneath. ' 



478 



Arctotis. Arclblis grdndis 



