GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 
OF AMERICA 
Devoted to the Science of Floriculture and Horticulture 
■ Vol. XXI. 
AUGUST, 1917 
No. 8 ■ 
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Things and Thoughts of the Garden 
By the Onlooker 
ONE never gets tired of seeing that stately and 
graccly foliage plant, Canna gigantea, also 
known as Canna latifolia. It is easily the 
largest of the Canna family, hence its name. Some 
amateurs might even regard it as a Banana, which it 
resembles in the breadth and size of its foliage. As 
a Summer bedding plant for a border next to a dwell- 
ing, where it is most frequently seen, it is well 
adapted. One good feature about the Cannas, this 
one and the others, is that once we have them we al- 
ways have them — given reasonable care in the storing. 
* * * * 
In speaking of Cannas, it is permissible to dwell for 
a second on the marvellous advancement that has 
occured in these plants. Formerly they had compara- 
tively poor floral trusses compared with the amount 
of leaves they carry, and many of these glumaceous 
old-timers still hang around. They are what one too 
often sees in the garden of the conservative suburban- 
ite. "The modern race of dwarf and 'Crazy-flower- 
ing' Cannas," as Gray tells us, "is mostly sprung from 
Canna Eheinanni crossed with C. Warscewiczii or 
with Ehemanni and glauca. The latter cross gave the 
yellow varieties ; the other cross the red ones. Such 
varieties as Firebird, King Humbert, are superb and 
gorgeous, truly placed among the finest of all decora- 
tive plants, and so healthy and generous in their 
growth, they will repay whatever trouble is taken to 
get and keep them happy. 
* * * * 
In the last issue of The Chronicle T wrote in favor 
of a bit more study of our native wild flowers. Since 
then I appear, on taking stock of my outings, to have 
traveled considerably, and have botanized up the 
Delaware River in Pennsylvania ; well up the Hudson 
in New York State, down in Long Island ; around 
Princeton University in New Jersey and have viewed 
collections of wild flowers on exhibition at Boston. 
The most remarkable flower of the moment is the 
Swamp Lily, Lilium superbum. This wonderful 
wilding is still found in the big bustling city of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., and one Sunday morning lately, be- 
fore many of the church people were up, I went out to 
the nearby swamps and cut several spikes from a 
goodly colony there, one spike having upward of 
twenty flowers. In the same armful I brought home 
the bonnie blue chicory, whose flowers open in the 
morning and in cloudy weather only. The latter is a 
European plant that has made its home widely over 
our Eastern States. It is found on dry road sides and 
on open sunny slopes, often where the ground gets 
frequently trodden. It grows luxuriously on some of 
the islands in Boston harbor, just as it flourishes 
along the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk in England. 
Alas, it is no good as a cut-flov\'er. In two to two and 
a half hours the color of the blooms changes to a 
pinky grey and then brown. 
* * * * 
The Chicory, so beautiful as a wild flower or as a 
hardy border plant for the garden, is, of course, what 
is used with coffee, as an adulterant or substitute. 
The root is ground up. The young shoots too, are 
blanched and used as a salad. So are the le^ives of its 
brother, the Endive. Both are Chicoriums. Another 
wild plant that finds a place among culinary subjects 
is the Purslane, which however, is regarded merely 
as a weed with us. It has but little beauty of flower. 
It is mentioned here to associate it with a much more 
brilliant member of the same genus, Portulaca grandi 
flora of gardens. The Purslane is Portulaca oleracea. 
Two other "vegetables" that have run wild over thou- 
sands of acres, indeed everywhere in the East, are the 
Carrot and Parsnip. The yellow, strongly branching 
umbeds of the latter, on plants 2 ft. to 3 ft. high, is 
found on waste land, and the Carrot (Queen Anne's 
Lace) is found by roadside and meadows. 
* * * * 
Spiraea tomentosa is another of the most handsome 
of our native N. American plants. Its pink terminal 
spikes are beautiful in the dampish woods of New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania, rising 4 ft. high. It was at 
its finest in the early days of this month. Similarly, 
the long arching white spikes of Cimicifviga racemosa 
are very graceful, and this plant also is found in the 
half shady woods, and may grow 6 ft. or more high. 
In the marshes the Mallows convert their dismal 
swamps into glorious gardens of color throughout 
August. Truly, among our wildings of Summer are 
many unsurpassed gems. Bouncing Bet (Saponaria 
officinalis) and Pleurisy Root (Asclepias tuberosa) 
are dwarf but still brilliant and charming. Two 
colonies of the former which I transferred from the 
road side to one of my flower borders have been as 
effective as anything else in the collection. Everv 
plant has come double — evidently the direct result of 
good soil and cultivation. 
* * * * 
Some remarks were made in this section of The 
Chronicle for July, on the general paucity of our 
knowledge of the medical uses of many of the plants 
297 
