THE MICHAELMAS DAISY AS A GAEDEN PLANT. 



17 



to six inches. So in speaking of ' Michaelmas Daisies as garden 

 plants it ought to be known that specific names, even though 

 correct, may be very misleading. When we are told that perennial 

 Asters comprise between three and four hundred botanical names 

 of species and varieties, it seems hard that even these names 

 may be correctly given without fixing the characters of the 

 flower from a florist's point of view. Perhaps, therefore, these 

 botanical names had better be ignored by gardeners in this 

 class, unless accompanied by some recognised fancy name, 



Fig. 4. — Aster cokymbosus. (From the Dictionary of Gardening.) 



hecause there are few about which botanists are agreed as "to 

 •the type of the species. 



However, the number of botanical species which include all 

 the most ornamental Michaelmas Daisies is not large, perhaps 

 about one-tenth or less of the whole genus. I have been pro- 

 posing to myself to limit the number of varieties I cultivate to 

 fifty, and these probably would not be found to belong to more 

 than twenty species at most. A good many of them seem to be 

 garden hybrids, perhaps of doubtful parentage, but it matters 

 little to gardeners whether a good flower is a good species or not. 

 Before enumerating the probable species amongst which the 



c 



