THE MICHAELMAS DAISY AS A GARDEN PLANT. 



13 



THE MICHAELMAS DAISY AS A GARDEN PLANT. 



By the Eev. C. Wolley Dod, M.A., F.E.H.S. 



Befoee reading the notes which I have written on this subject, 

 I must say that some of the specific names to which the 

 committee appointed to examine the Chiswick collection of 

 Michaelmas Daisies have assigned certain garden forms, have 

 to-day taken me rather by surprise. I do not here question 

 their accuracy, but may remark that perhaps the decisions come 

 to may not prove final ; and without intending the slightest 

 disparagement to botanical science, I may say that botanists 

 and ga.-rdeners alike seem doubtful about the history and parentage 

 of some of the most ornamental forms. Up to this day I 

 retained all the specific names given on the authority of Kew 

 about three years ago ; some of these have now been changed, 

 and others declared to be uncertain. 



When tall Phloxes and perennial Sunflowers are on the wane 

 in gardens, Michaelmas Daisies become conspicuous, and later, 

 when the first frosts of October have disfigured Dahlias and 

 Heliotropes, the colours of these hardy plants become brighter, 

 and the flowers seem to derive new vigour from the cold nights, 

 being reminded by them of their native home on the North 

 American prairies, to which a large proportion of them belong. 



Any flowers which carry on the gaiety of a garden nearly 

 into winter ought to be carefully encouraged ; and though the 

 Michaelmas Daisy cannot compete either in brightness of colour 

 or in size of flower with the Chrysanthemum, still it ornaments 

 many a flower border in which its less hardy rivals would 

 never open their buds at all ; and though there are few gardens 

 in which it has not yet found a place, there are still fewer in 

 which it is made as much of as it deserves to be. 



The habit of Michaelmas Daisies is so various that one 

 cannot speak about it in general terms. From the tallest, Aster 

 umbellatus, growing eight or nine feet high, to the dwarf 

 nondescript, probably belonging to a form or hybrid of 

 A. versicolor, rising scarcely to a height of as many inches, every 

 gradation in stature is easily found ; and from A. Amellus or 

 A. dumosus, which from a small base spread to a width equal to 

 their height, to those which make a narrow umbel of flowers 



