280 



The Readers' Service is prepared to 

 advise parents in regard to schools 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 191 



Gene 

 Stratton - 

 Porter 



Author of 



The Harvester 



Published August 17th, 1911, and in less than four months has 

 run into its 125th thousand. 



Illustrated. Fixed price, $1.35 {postage 15c.) 



Freckles 



Published six years ago. About 150,000 copies sold in 1911 



alone! Illustrated. Fixed price, $1.20 (postage 12c.) 



A Girl of the Limberlost 



Published about two and a half years ago. Plans completed for 

 printing the 189th thousand. 



Illustrated. Fixed price, $1.20 {postage 12c.) 



<J In these days of many new books there must be some very unusual 

 quality in an author's work to account for the growing interest of 

 several hundred thousand readers over a period of six years. 



•I The greatest novel Mrs. Porter has written is " The Harvester. " 

 If you have not read this you have missed one of the most enjoy- 

 able things in many months. 



Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden, City, N. Y. 



to examine them and advise you as to what they need. 



V/")! TO Avoid tree fakers and tree butchers. Our free booklets 



*■ vUI\ explain tree surgery the science founded by John Davey. 



TDITirC "Write tor them. THE 1IAVEY TKKE EXPEKT CO., Inc., 



1 I\HEO 151 Oak Street, Kent, Ohio 



Quality JL./WA7IN /V\0\A/ERS 



THE ONLY MAKE WITH CRUCIBLE TOOL-STEEL 

 BLADES THROUGHOUT 



I RHODES DOUBLE CUT 

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sides of the limb and does not bruise 



the bark. Made in all styles and 



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Write for circular and prices 



underground stem. This stem is as big as a turnip 

 and is full of starch. The foliage which is often 

 very scant, especially when the seed head is ma- 

 ture, consists of a tuft of fern-like, glossy green 

 leaves. 



A fine healthy specimen forms a beautiful pot' 

 plant. Koonti plants have been shipped North 

 for this purpose. It grows easily and is easily 

 transplanted. According to the botanists there 

 are two species in South Florida, one is Zamia 

 Floridana and the other is Zamia pumila. The 

 latter inhabits Central Florida and the former is 

 found on the East coast below New River. 



Its great botanical interest lies in the fact that 

 it is a link between the highest cryptogams and 

 lowest phanerogams. The fecundation of this 

 plant is peculiar and difficult to explain in detail 

 in this connection. Suffice it to say that the 

 pollen grains develop spermatazoa which wiggle 

 about at such a lively rate that one might 

 easily believe that the koonti, after all, is partly 

 animal. 



This subject has been carefully studied by Dr. 

 H. J. Webber and embodied in Bulletin No. 2, 1901, 

 entitled "Spermatogenesis and Fecundation of 

 Zamia," United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



Dr. Webber found the mature Spermatozoids 

 of Zamia to be the largest known to occur in any 

 plant or animal. They are even visible to the 

 naked eye. He kept them alive in sugar solutions 

 and found their motion to be due mainly to the 

 action of cilia. 



Such a plant might be very carefully studied and 

 improved. It is rare indeed, that nature offhand, 

 produces such an agricultural snap. It yields 

 starch of good quality — it plants itself and grows 

 without care or cultivation, it is not injured by 

 fire and because of its poisonous nature has few if 

 any enemies, it grows on very poor land which can 

 at the same time be producing timber. 



Florida. John Giitoed. 



A Neglected Evening Primrose 



THE last place in the world that I expected to 

 come across any flower garden "finds" was 

 in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. Yet 

 there, more than a dozen miles from any railroad 

 in one case and eight miles in another, I found 

 several interesting flowers that my own more 

 favored garden lacked. I was particularly struck 

 by some very flourishing plants of what I regard 

 as the most beautiful of all the evening primroses, 

 CEnothera caspitosa, which is grown in England 



The flowers of Oenothera caespitosa change from 

 white to pink, and have a magnolia-like fragrance 



as O. marginata. The large satiny flowers, 

 changing from white to pink before they close in 

 the morning and exhaling the odor of the mag- 

 nolia, are particularly desirable for the border 

 of the early riser and I fail to understand why it 

 is so much neglected in the east. I have seen it 

 in only one other garden, my close acquaintance 

 with it being in the mountains of Colorado. It 

 is perennial, or biennial, and may be grown from, 

 seed, root suckers or cuttings. B. G. 



