214 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 



349. GERANIUM wants hardiness only to make 

 it the finest flower-plant of which I have any know- 

 ledge. Some give us flower with little or no leaf ; 

 others have beauty of leaf as well as of flower, but 

 give us no fragrance ; others, like the rose, give us 

 this added to beauty of flower and of leaf, but, it give 

 us them only for a part of the year. But, the Ge- 

 ranium has beautiful leaf, beautiful flower, flagrant 

 smell from leaf as well as from flower^ and these it 

 has in never-ceasing abundance ; and as to variety 

 of sorts, as well as in leaf as in flower, it surpasses 

 even the flower of the Auricula. How delightful 

 the country, where Geraniums form the underwood, 

 and the Myrtles tower above ! Softly, my friends. 

 Beneath that underwood lurks the poisonous lizards 

 and serpents, and through those Myrtle boughs the 

 deadly wino^ed adders rustle ; while all around is 

 dry and burning sand. The Geranium is a native 

 of the South of Africa ; and, though it will not re- 

 ceive its death-blow from even a sharpish frost, it 

 will not endure the winter, even in the mild climate 

 of England. But, then, it is so easy of cultivation, 

 it grows so fast, blows so soon, and is so little trou- 

 blesome, that it seems to argue an insensibility to 

 the charms of nature not to have Geraniums if we 

 have the means of obtaining earth and sun. — The 

 Geranium is propagated from seed, or from cuttings. 

 The seed, like that of the Auricula, does not pro- 

 duce flower or leaf like the mother plant, except by 

 chance. It is easily saved, and for curiosity's sake, 

 may be sown to see if a new variety will come. 

 But, a cutting, from any part of the plant, old wood 

 or young wood, stuck into the ground, or into a pot, 

 will grow and become a plant, and will blow in a 

 month from the time you put it into the ground. 

 You must have plants, indeed, to cut from ; but 



