380 THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



Mat U, 1912. 



and, provided that the planting site is com- 

 paratively moist, they will compare favour- 

 ably with other border perennials. 



Of the Lythrums I would especially advo- 

 cate the use of the fine forms of L. sali- 

 caria, the well-known native plant which 

 creates such glowing beauty masses through- 

 out late summer. The type, as may be 

 generally noted, possesses blossoms of a red- 

 dish-purple colouring, but decidedly better 

 effects can be obtained by the use of roseum, 

 a bright rosy variety, and superbum, which 

 is very near to it. Both make grand bushy 

 subjects which are invaluable in the water 

 and bog garden, especially as the summer 

 flowers are decide<lly on the wane when 

 they are in their beauty. 



L. Grsefferi, with ite dwarf, florifcrous 

 habit and bright rosy-pink blossoms, is 

 adapted for positions requiring dwaifer 

 subjects than L. salicaria ; while the pretty 

 L. alatium, with its bushy growth, short 

 <lark green leafage, and rich purple colour- 

 ing, sterns to be more at home in dryish 

 places than its companion species. It even 

 does well in the rock garden provided it can 

 have sufficient soil for root development. 

 The rosy-^purplo L. virgatum, with its 

 branched habit of growth, and its medium 

 height, is also worthy of note, and, like its 

 kindred, is very effective. Certainly there 

 is <a need for the brightness of the 

 Lythrums. 



Of the Lysimachias a few notes must 

 suffice, but from the bright golden vigorous 

 L. vulgaris, with its tall strong spikes of 

 blossom, to the lowly creeping L. Nummu- 

 laria, which is largely used in many gar- 

 dens, especially old-fashioned ones, they are 

 diverse in form and habit, and certamly 

 not devoid of interest. L. clethroides, 

 with its graceful spikes of milk-white blos- 

 soms, is eminently serviceable, but a trifle 

 neglected. Another good white is L. ephe- 

 merum, with its erect, leafy stems and 

 terminal heads of dark-centred white blos- 

 soms. The two white-flowered Chinese spe- 

 cies, L. Fortunei and L. barystachys (the 

 latter a dwarf species with dense racemes) 

 are both decide^lfy worthy of not^, and 

 add to the interest of the moist spots of the 

 garden. 



Good yellow Lysimachias include the 

 native L. vulgaris, a useful wild garden 

 moisture lover ; L. thyrsiflora, another fine 

 native, with grand panicles of golden blos- 

 som (a fine watorside plant); L. v, verticil- 

 lata (or punctata, as it is sometimes called), 

 a glowing bright yellow; L. v..quadrifolia, 

 with its showy blossoms, and leaves in 

 whorls of four; L. v. japonica, a notable 

 Japanese species with grand blossom spikes, 

 and L. davurica, a Siberian gem, which 

 seems to have much in common with our 

 own L. vulgaris. These gleaming gold and 

 yellow Lysimachias give a bright glint of 

 colour to the waterside and bog garden dur- 

 ing late summer, and they are also service- 

 able for border planting, giving a display 

 when many other subjects have finished 

 their reign. 



The dark purple L. atropurpurea gives a 

 welcome change of colour to the preceding 



It is an elegant plant and deserv- 



As for 



specie^. 



ing of notice among garden lovers, 

 the creeoinfiT L. Nummularia, and 



its 



creeping 



variety aurea, they are splendid for carpet- 

 ing low, moist banks in the wild garden. 



P. S. Hayward. 



Rhodanthe Mang^lesi.— This used 



to be regarded as rather a difficult subject 

 to grow, but any obstacles in this respect 

 seem now to have been overcome, as charming 

 pots of both the pink and white forms may 

 be seen in the summer hawked in the streets 

 of Ijondon. By some market growers they 

 are cultivated in immense quantities. — ^T. 



FLORAL MONSTROSITIES. 



It would be an interesting study, not 



without educational value horticulturally, 



to look through a florist's catalogue of 



ten or twenty years ago, and see how many 



of the new introductions and varieties 



therein described are still given a place 



in the nurserymen's hsts of to-day. Many 



do not realise how largely commercialism 



enters into the matter, for florists must 



have novelties to offer, if they are to be 



in the forefront of their profession, and 



when a new plant has been brought out 



it must be boomed to get a sale for it. 

 It is similar also, in some respects, to the 

 fashions in dress — new designs are brought 

 out so that people must get them if they 

 are to be in the fashion, and new varie- 

 ties of flowers, fruits, and vegetables are 

 constantly being introduced and made well 

 known, with the result that gardeners 

 are persuaded to try them in order 

 to be up-to-date, or a little ahead 

 of their neighbours. Anyone visiting a 

 Temple Flower Show must have been 

 struck by the number of flowers of little 

 merit, but often labelled as new. To 

 pursue the above' simile a little further, 

 as pictures of the fashions of twenty or 

 thirty years ago do not always call forth 

 admiration to-day, let us, when ordering 

 plants, try and detach ourselves from the 

 present, and look at the specimens from a 

 disinterested standpoint, and try to assess 

 their value. Unfortunately, 



The Fascination of Novelties 



is so great for many of us that it often 

 blinds our judgment as to what is really 

 most beautiful. It would be a good thing 

 if we could form a calm unbiassed judg- 

 ment in regard to modern popular flowers, 

 with a view to deciding which really do 

 deserve to be grown for their own sake, 

 apart from fashion, and which ought to 

 be relegated to oblivion. If the succeeding 

 generation should turn out to be charac- 

 terised by a more intense love of natural 

 beauty than the present* possesses in the 

 mass, what will they think of pictures of 

 begonia blossoms nearly as large and round 

 as tennis balls, snapdragons with stunted 

 little pyramids of blossom, wallflowers 

 little better, and plants of various sorts 

 with all their energy devoted to the pro- 

 duction of one or two big blossoms where 

 there should be a dozen or more? 



One often regrets that the florists' art 

 should be misdirected to the spoiling of 

 good flowers. Surely the glory of the wall- 

 flower, which is hardly second to its soent, 

 consists in its crimson, brown, and golden 

 colours, and yet we have been given shades 

 of dingy purple, magecita, and washed-out 

 yellow, and it is scarcely possible to raise 

 a packet of seeil without finding S' me 

 plants tainted by these, to me, wretcneJ 

 strains. We have none too many easily- 

 grown flowers in the garden of a warm 

 glowing crimson, free from magenta and 

 purple tints, but the gaillardia is one of 

 them, and yet florists have raised varie- 

 ties in which the principal colour is a pale 

 yellow, with a faded band round the di^c, 

 as well as double forms of nondescrjpt 

 character- Of clear blue flowers we have 

 still fewer, and yet the delphinium has 

 been so much crossed with varieties having 

 mauve and purple in their composition 

 that, in raising a batch of seedlings now 

 from the best mixed seed, it is almost the 



a variety of a pure 



A Sense of Proportion 



in assessing the relative value of a plant 

 and the blossoms it produces. The plant 

 should be beautiful, as a whole, the foru 

 of the plant, as well as its foliage, acting 

 as a foil to show off the beauty of th 

 flowers. Instead of this, the plant ha* 

 been regarded as of quite subsidiary im- 

 portance, and simply as a flower-produc- 

 ing organism. When flowers are consider- 

 ably increased in size and quality, while 

 the height or vigour of the plant remains 

 unaltered, the balance of Nature is oft^ii 

 destroyed, while, when the natural growtli 

 of the plant is at the same time diminishes] 

 to a dwarf and compact form, the result 

 is sometimes little short of a deformitv. 

 The double zinnia is an instance of tk 

 first, especially when the plants are of a 

 "fine dwarf habit," and when to this h 

 added that type of the double flower in 

 which some of the petals stand up above 

 the others, we have a plant which in its 

 total effect comes about as near to ugliness 

 as man has yet succeeded in producing in 

 this line. 



Of the second class the four or five-inch 

 snapdragons may be taken as an extreme 

 instance. The beauty of the snapdragon is 

 its stately spikes of finely-formed flowers, 

 not too tightly pressed together up the 

 stem, but in the stunted form all this is 

 gone. The dahlia is an instance of the 

 development of a flower with the exhibi- 

 tion table as the main object in view, the 

 result being now that many of the finest 

 varieties we see at a show are almost use- 

 less for the garden, the stems either being 

 too short to hold the blossom above the 

 foliage, or too weak to support the weight 

 of the flower. 



Some of the worst results of the florists' 

 art are to be seen in 



The Doublins: of Flowers. 



Some go to the extreme of objecting to all 

 double flowers, but this position cannot he 

 defended, for many flowers are obviously 

 improved by it, the single type often beiii? 

 insignificant or lacking in effect, and hav- 

 ing no great beauty of form to recommend 

 it, as is the case with stocks and carna- 

 tions, where few will be found to admit 

 that the single forms are better worth 

 growing. But when it comes to singf 

 flowers of perfect form, then doubling is 

 the florists' method of marring Natures 

 perfect work. Think of the beauty ot 

 form of the Madonna lily, the Tiger U^- 

 the Canterbury bell, the peach-leaved be! - 

 flower, the day lily, and even the violets 

 nasturtium, and primrose, and the id^* 

 of spoiling the form of the flower by ir)^^ 

 ing one or more deformed corollas y^nm 

 their perfect shapes seems little short 

 sacrilege. The double tulip, too, whjn 

 compared with the graceful outline or t 

 closed, or partly opened, bud of the oj ' 

 fashioned Golden Crown, is found sadj^ 

 wanting, and when used for bedding ^ 

 little more effective than balls of coloure 

 paper. 



We are even 



threatened with 



double 

 ublic 



sweet peas, but it is to be hoped that p«w 

 taste will give no encouragement to 



■ 



xception to get 

 blue. 



The mistakes which florists make with 

 regard to many flowers seems to be owing 

 to a want of 



experts in this respect, and it is to p^'^'^*' 

 taste than we must look, as the nursjr 

 man is dependent upon it for his custo ^ 

 There is undoubtedly a set to-day agai^^ 

 double flowers, as evidenced by the e 

 increasing numbers of single ^ff^^^^^fs 

 roses and chrysanthemums, and " o^. 

 will subject all novelties to the tesi- 

 beautv, rather than fashion, the nuiD 

 of undesirable uovelties in every ySi^' 

 will be considerably reduced, and n^^^.^ 

 less the nurserymen will be as g^-'^^J*^ 

 customers. Ai^geb V^'^ 



