THE CHRYSANTHEMUM — ITS HISTORY AND PROGRESS. 



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gardeners is best shown in growing large bushes, which iiave been known to carry as 

 many as 400 flowers of medium size, all in perfect condition, on the same day. An English 

 gardener who had visited every show within reach of Tokyo, including the Emperor's 

 celebrated collection in the palace grounds, told me that he had seen no individual blossoms 

 equal to the best do/en or so at a first-rate London exhibition, but that these great plants 

 with their hundreds of flowers were triumphs of horticulture. The most curious examples 

 of Chrysanthemum growing were to be seen in the Dangozaka quarters of Tokyo. The 

 long, hilly street is bordered on each side with gardens enclosed with high bamboo fences, 

 and in every one, by paying three rin, you could see groups of life-size figures mainly 

 covered with Chrysanthemum leaves and flowers. They represented scenes from history, 

 the drama, or Buddhist mythology, and were constructed with frameworks of bamboo, 

 inside which the flower-pots were concealed, the shoots being brought through the openings 

 and trained over the outer surface. The heads and hands were made of painted wood, and 

 swords and other accessories were added to make them more life-like ; the draperies of 

 living leaves and flowers were skilfully arranged in large folds, and, as in most of the 

 popular shows, they depicted the costumes of Daimio and Samurai of the past. At 

 each entrance 1 was given a sort of playbill, a roughly painted broadsheet with a woodcut 

 and a description of the different groups serving as an advertisement of the gardener's 

 establishment." 



This description of the Chrvsanthemum in Japan serves to show that the gloriously- 

 coloured flower we hold dear in Britain is cultivated in a way similar to our own methods. 

 A few years ago specimen growing was a fashion here, but the big, formal plants, as 

 regularly shaped as if carved out oi huge turnips or modelled in wax, are no longer seen in 

 large numbers, and their departure occasions in the minds of the majority of flower gardeners 

 no regret. Chrvsanthemum culture has been raised in Great Britain, as in Japan and 

 America, to a high " art " — thai is, of course, for exhibition, and each year varieties are bred 

 of wonderful colour and startling size, improvements in some measure, it is to be presumed, 

 upon the thousands that have been passed by in the rush for mere dimensions. It seems 

 strange to compare the huge show blooms with the modest little type, introduced from 

 China, for there is no reason to doubt that this plant is a true native of China, from whence 

 it was introduced into Japan. The species first opened its eyelids in the Royal Gardens, 

 Kew, in the year 1790, plants having been sent from China in the previous year to a 

 French nurseryman at Marseilles, Blancard by name. In Chinese literature reference is 

 made to the Chrysanthemum by Confucius, the great philosopher, who called the flower 

 Li-ki. Probably the blossoms which inspired Confucius were not the noble examples of the 

 hybridists' art that now adorn our show boards and greenhouses, but it is interesting to 

 know that the Chrysanthemum is one of the most ancient of garden flowers upon the world's 

 surface. Although the plant was probably introduced into England before the date previously 

 mentioned, as Sabine in 1764 mentions a variety in existence in the apothecaries' gardens 

 at Chelsea, yet this died, so that the history of the plant in England commences practically 

 with the flowering of the species at Kew. Three plants were introduced by Blancard, two of 

 which succumbed, and the survivor, the old purple Chrysanthemum as it is called, was the 

 species to give birth to the present race. Those who are interested in the family may like 

 to know that the first illustration of it was given in the "Botanical Magazine" of 1796, 

 and represents a flower of much charm. 



Chrysanthemums quickly became known to gardeners, and many raisers set to 

 work to extend and improve existing varieties by hybridisation, for in 1824 we know that 

 twenty-seven varieties were in the Horticultural Gardens at Chiswick. Book's began to 

 appear upon the cult of the Chrysanthemum ; but it was not until 1846, when Robert 

 Fortune, who was at that time collecting for the Horticultural Society, sent over from China 

 the Chusan Daisy, that a national interest, so to say, was beginning to arise. Fortune sent the 



