GARDEN FLOWERS. 



193 



bisciis CalifomicuH is, howevei', the largest, growing five 

 feet high, and bearing white flowers four to six inches 

 across, with purple centres. Among the best fall plants, 

 especially when mixed with grasses, such as the Artmido, 

 etc., are Kniphofim or Tritomas, the red-hot poker plant. 

 Like the Arundo, it is better, although it sometimes 

 winters well, to take it up and -winter it in a cellar. 

 It blooms splendidly 

 in autumn until frost. 

 There is no more 

 strange and intensely 

 colored flower than that 

 borne by this plant. It 

 is like flame partially 

 at white heat. Trito- 

 ma aloides, often called 

 JJvaria, is a well- 

 known kind that grows 

 three or four feet high. 

 There is a variety, 

 graThdiJlora, that grows 

 five feet Mgh, and there 

 is also a smaller species, eorallina, that grows only eighteen 

 inches to two feet, and bears bright coral-red flowers. 



The Lathyrus latifolius, everlasting pea, is an unjustly 

 neglected plant, looking well trailed over bushes or on the 

 ground, where its pretty i-ose-colored flowers last nearly all 

 summei'. There is also a pure white variety. Most of the 

 everlasting peas have large roots, and if left undisturbed 



improve with age. Lobelia cardinalis, the cardinal flower 

 13 



CARDINAL FLOWER. 



(lobelia CARDINALI3. ) 



