May, 1907 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



233 



cents a dozen. Plant them three inches 

 apart. 



The tuberose has the most powerful fra- 

 grance of any flower in cultivation. Refined 

 taste no longer tolerates it indoors, but every 

 home garden ought to have four tuberoses 

 in it, one in each corner. The old-fashioned 

 tall variety opens better in October than the 

 others, but the double Dwarf Pearl has almost 

 crowded it out of cultivation. It grows two 

 feet high and is filled for two-thirds its 

 length with flowers that are one and one- 

 half to two inches across, which is nearly 

 twice the size of the old kind. The Mexican 

 tuberose is early blooming, July or August, 

 and a good bulb produces two to five 

 stems. 



The tubers are large and cost only five 

 to ten cents each. Sound ones always 

 show signs of life at the tips. 



The Madeira vine (Boussingaultia basel- 

 loides) is an excellent twiner for porches and 

 arbors. It attains ten to twenty feet and 

 blooms in late summer or fall, having long, 

 gracefully drooping stems of small, fragrant 

 white flowers. The leaves, though not as 

 large and showy as those of the cinnamon 

 vine, are pretty, being thick, glossy and of 

 distinctive form. 



Like the cinnamon vine, it bears little 

 tubers in the axils of the leaves. After these 

 are grown for a year they produce the tubers 

 which we buy. They cost five or ten cents 

 and are as easy to store over winter as 

 potatoes. It is not necessary to take them 

 up until after the first frost. 



The grandest flowers of the amaryllis 

 family are found in the genera Hippeastrum, 

 Crinum, Hymenocallis, and Pancratium. 

 Roughly speaking, these are all high-priced, 

 long-lived bulbs that are best grown in pots 

 and many of them may be used either for 

 winter bloom in greenhouse or for porch and 

 terrace decoration in summer, according to 

 whether the bulbs are rested in summer or 



winter. The exceptions in favor of general 

 garden cultivation are the following. 



The Jacobaean lily (Sprekelia jormosissima 

 but catalogued as an Amaryllis) bears one 

 large, dark scarlet flower of marked char- 

 acter. Planted in May, it blooms in June 

 before the leafing, the hollow scape rising 

 about two feet. The bulbs will ripen by 

 fall and must be taken up with the tops on 

 and stored in a dry room which is free from 

 frost. It may also be grown in water for 

 winter bloom, like hyacinths, in glasses. 



There are two crinums that can be left 

 outdoors permanently in the North if well 

 protected. The hardiest is the Cape lily 

 {Crinum longijoiium, known in the trade as 

 C. Capense), which bears six to twelve good- 

 sized flowers which are more or less tinged 

 with red outside and sometimes inside. It 

 produces great quantities of large, odd- 



The ele 

 a b 



phant's ear {Colocasia) planted in the centre of 

 ed and surrounded by Vernon begonias 



The canna is one of the most brilliant and best of 

 garden plants but often injud ciously used 



shaped seeds as big as a chestnut. The 

 only other hardy crinum is C. Powelli. This 

 is a hybrid between C. longifolium and C. 

 Moorei, having the hardiness of the former 

 and the peachy color of the latter. It 

 resembles a pink lily five inches across 

 and one plant will bear about eight 

 flowers. 



These crinums must be grown in a well- 

 drained soil and protected during the winter 

 from hard freezing and excessive moisture. 

 They are long-necked bulbs and the top of 

 the bulb proper should be planted two to two 

 and a half feet befow the surface. Before 

 the first frost, put a mound of ashes over 

 them to shed rain, or cover them a foot deep 

 with leaves and then put a water-tight box 

 over all. 



Sea daffodils and spider lily are names 

 often given to Hymenocallis and Pancratium, 

 two genera that have a fringed cup, which 



There is more variety in the dahlia than in any 

 other summer flowering, bulbous plant 



varies as much in shape as the "crown" 

 among daffodils. 



The best of this group for general culti- 

 vation is known to gardeners as Ismene. 

 It has fragrant, white flowers unlike any- 

 thing else in the garden. This plant costs 

 only twenty-five cents. It is best planted 

 in June and taken up in October. "After 

 a few weeks' rest," says a reliable dealer, 

 "it may be potted and flowered in the house 

 in winter, or stored in a dry, warm place for 

 planting out next June." 



Hymenocallis undulata costs only fifteen 

 cents and has ten flowers in a cluster, whereas 

 the preceding has only two to five. It has 

 linear petals and a cup about one inch long 

 which is tinged with red. 



The name sea daffodil properly belongs 

 to Pancratium maritimum because its inch- 

 long cup projects beyond the petals like a 

 hoop-petticoat daffodil. It costs fifteen cents. 



Pancratium Illyricum, said to be the 

 hardiest, commonest, and best of the genus, 

 is a small-cupped species with long, narrow 

 twice-cut teeth. It costs fifty cents. 



Rigidella is a rare, red-flowered, Mexican 

 relative of Tigridia, which is distinguished 

 by its smaller inner segments. 



Nemastylis is one of the few blue flowers 

 of the iris family beside the blue-eyed grass 

 or Sisyrinchium. N. cceleslina and acuta 

 are natives in the South. 



The great family of the Araceae is full of 

 strange dragon-like plants. The devil's 

 tongue (Amor -pho phallus Rivieri) has gigan- 

 tic, dark-red flowers often three feet long 

 which appear before the leaves. It is occa- 

 sionally grown in subtropical beds for foliage 

 effect, but like the so-called Arums, it is 

 properly only a greenhouse curiosity. The 

 bulb is best stored under greenhouse benches 

 in a temperature of 50 and an atmosphere 

 moist enough to keep it from shriveling. 



[Note. — The Garden Magazine will pay 

 from $10 to $25 for an illustrated account 

 of personal experience with the rarer plants 

 above mentioned.] 



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