20 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
A GROUP OF 
Caladiums as Garden Plants. 
[COPYCIQHT SECURED.] 
CALADIUMS . — Drawn from Nature. - 
-Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
The attempts to follow the styles of garden 
ornamentation which are so successfully carried 
out in England are with us, for the most part, 
if not downright failures, at least quite unsatis- 
factory. Our florists import bedding plants, 
and with them the glowing descriptions of 
English dealers ; the plants are tried by a few 
seekers after novelties, and are generally heard 
of no more. A few, indeed, stand the test to 
which our hot summers subject them, and we 
shall in time find a sufficient number of plants 
suited to our climate, with which we can 
produce all desirable effects. This list will, 
however, be quite different from the plants 
which flourish so finely in the moist summers 
of England. One after another, the plants 
which we formerly supposed could be seen 
only in a hot-house, or at least a green-house, 
are found to answer admirably when planted 
in the open ground during summer ; our weath- 
er seems to remind them of their native tropics, 
and they flourish accordingly. Those who 
read of the wonderful beauty of the sub-tropical 
gardening of Europe need not euvy the culti- 
vators across the water. Our own climate 
allows of the use of a larger number of sub- 
tropical plants for garden decorations than does 
theirs. It needs only a few good examples here 
and there to create a public taste for this style 
of gardening, and as soon as there is a demand 
for plants of a tropical habit our florists will 
not be slow in supplying it. The Caladiums 
are now attracting attention for decorative pur- 
poses out of doors. The great beauty of their 
leaves, in both form and color, have long made 
them prized ornaments of the hot-house, but 
they are now to be more widely known, and 
we hope to see them before long as popular as 
their relative, the well-known Calla. The 
Caladium, (or Colocasia esciilenhim,) a very large 
species with enormous leaves, the bulbs of which 
are the chief article of food of the natives of the 
Sandwich Islands, has been more or less culti- 
vated for years. The leaves of this are of a soft, 
light green, but other species present ns with 
foliage of most brilliant colors and exquisite 
