T 
34 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
September, 1916 
Giant Dan«1n 
Tulips 
(May-Floweringj 
The Tulips 
of Milady’s Garden 
When Milady on a brilliant May morning surveys 
her garden border planted in clumps of Darwin and 
Cottage^Tulips, the blooms as large as the giant Cattleya 
orchids, the petals as thick and as massive as the water- 
lily, glittering and glistening in the sunlight, she will be 
tempted to say that these Tulips are indeed the Queens 
of the spring garden. Whether you delight in having 
flowers with 2- to 3-foot stems for cutting, masses of 
color against the background of shrubs, planted in 
clumps of ten or twenty-five each in the herbaceous 
border, or in various-shaped beds on the lawn, few 
other Tulips will provide such a wonderful display. 
Ten Fine Darwin Tulips ' 
The following ten varieties of Darwin Tulips have been 
selected from our extensive list as being excellent growers and 
distinct in color. These are good standard varieties and are 
offered at moderate prices. 
■' J 
Baronne de la Tonnaye. A long and beautiful flower, 
clear carmine-rose at midrib, toning off to soft pink at edges, 
borne on steins 26 inches long. 
40 ot». per doz,, ^1^.50 per lOO, per 1,000. 
Clara Butt. Beautiful clear salmon-pink. No other variety 
offered by us has the same distinctive and pleasing color. Borne 
on stems 22 inches long. 
40 ots. per doz., ^ti.50 per 100, i#84 per 1,000. 
Dream. A uniform mauve shade, of large size and handsome 
form. Splendid for contrasting with pink and white. Borne on 
stems 24 inches long. 
60 cts. per doz., ^4 per lOO. *88 per 1,000 
Europe. Deep, fiery crimson, with white base. Flowers large 
and erect. Height 20 inches. 
50 etft. per doz., ^8.50 per 100, ^i8‘4 per 1,000. 
Glow. The deepest shade of crimson-scarlet; a color of wonder* 
ful brilliance, not unlike that of the Oriental poppy. Borne on 
stems 20 inches long. 
60 eta. per doz., i#8.50 per lOO, >>8*4 per 1,000. 
Margaret. Pale rose, centre white, delicately marked blue, a 
very delicate and pleasing color. Borne on stem 22 inches long. 
SO cts. per doz., per 100, ^18 per 1,000. 
Mrs. Potter Palmer. A distinct dark violet; flowers of won- 
derful substance and size. The stems frequently attain height of 
28 inches. 
?0 cte. per doz., $5 per 100, >>48 per 1,000. 
Pride of Haarlem. Magnificently formed flower of immense 
size, of a brilliant deep rose, shaded scarlet, with light blue base. 
Sometinies attaining height of 3 feet. 
40 cts. per doz., i>8 per 100, >>38 per 1,000. 
The Sultan. Rich maroon-black; a flower of attractive and 
distinctive coloring, grow to height of 25 inches. 
80 ets. per doz., i>3 per 100, ^18 per 1,000. 
White Queen. A splendid white variety; when first opening 
pale rose but quickly turns white. 
50 cts. per doz., ^8.50 per 100, #>83 per 1,000. 
SPECIAL OFFER COLLECTIONS: 
Prepaid anywhere in the United States 
5 bulbs each of 10 varieties ( 50 bulbs) >>3.00 
10 bulbs each of 10 varieties (100 bulbs) 8.75 
30.bulbs each of 10 varieties (300 bulbs) 6.50 
Other Varieties of Darwins, as well as complete list of the various bulbs for Fall Planting, 
may be found in our 1916 Fall Bulb Catalogue, which we will send upon request. 
30-32 Barclay St. 
New York 
J. 
id 
Hide Your Garag e 
Why look out on bare walls or your neigh- 
bors’ wash flapping in the breeze? A row of 
Hicks’ Hardy Evergreens will screen unsightly 
views, improve the landscape and give pleas- 
ing color all year ’round. 
Splendid trees, dense foliage, strong roots. We 
transplant and guarantee to grow. The cost is so 
little it will surprise you. Write for booklet. 
HICKS NURSERIES 
Box M, We»tbury, L. I. 
Phone 68 ' 
Cellar nacres 
(^lalitolt 
Are in Full Flower. Let me send you a gen- 
erous box of these wonderful blossoms, each 
spike labeled for identification. This is the 
only way to know gladioli before you order the 
bulbs. Each box packed to travel perfectly — 
$1.00. 
B. HAMMOND TRACY 
Box 2T Wenham, Mass. 
Hand-Fertilizing Dahlias 
A CORRESPONDENT asks, in connection with 
an item of mine in The Garden Mag.azine of 
May, 1914, about the process of hand-fertilizing 
Dahlias for seed. 
It has been my experience that the time of year is 
an important element. Very rarely can I get a seed 
to set in a hand-worked flower earlier than Septem- 
ber. I judge that the fully mature plant of Septem- 
ber and October more easily throws its strength to 
seeding then than when it is younger and its full 
stature not attained. Also, in this valley climate 
where I live, there is little rainy weather in Septem- 
ber and October, as a general rule. In dog-days 
there are showers every twenty-four hours or so, and 
blossoms set aside for seed often watersoak and rot 
instead of properly dropping their petals and closing 
their waterproof calyxes. A rot like the waxy rot of 
peach orchards often forms on fading Dahlias in 
damp weather; it spreads rapidly if flowers affected 
are not picked off and burned. 
Fertilizing single Dahlias by hand is a simple mat- 
ter. The ray florets have no pollen, usually, but a 
normal pistil thrusting its forked stigma out of the 
base of the ray-tube. I am experimenting this year 
with some seed of outside-row collarette rays, to see 
whether the outside row seeds will run differently in 
flower-form from the rest of the pod; but I have 
never read anything on the probabilities of ray-floret 
seeds as compared with the small yellow tubular 
florets of the disk, and have myself no guess as to 
chances. In making the seeds I have, I picked a 
good flower of the same collarette variety which had 
the outer three rows of disk florets full of mossy 
yellow pollen; and by opening the ray-florets of the 
seedbearer a little, inserted the undisturbed anthers 
of my picked flower in upon the forked stigmasofone 
after another of the ray florets of the seed-making 
blossom. When I had gone around the circle, the 
pollen of my picked flower was nearly gone. I took 
the picked flower into the house and placed in water 
where bees could not get at it to rob it. On the 
second day much of the immature disk had flowered 
and was mossy with yellow pollen again; and I car- 
ried it out to the garden and “ rubbed noses” with it 
all over the disk of the seed bearing flower, which 
had many stigmas recurved (a sign of ripeness in the 
Dahlia’s stigma). Of course this is relatively a hit- 
or-miss process, as the seed bearer is not without 
some ripened pollen of its own, which the rubbing 
distributes about. The individual Dahlia flower is 
made up of many florets, which are self-fertile to 
their own pollen or the pollen of any other floret of 
the same disk; but which, in the course of ages, have 
taken a solid precaution against self-fertilization, 
just the same. In every Dahlia floret the forked 
stigma stands well out and recurves, sensitive sur- 
face uppermost; while the short anthers bear their 
pollen a day or so later and barely outside the flower 
tube, massing well below their own pistil. Outside 
florets of each disk ripen first, the centre some days 
later; and the pollen of the outside row is generally 
in condition to be carried by insects to the fourth or 
fifth row in, whose pistils are just opening and re- 
curving in their most sensitive and receptive con- 
dition. The tendency in any single Dahlia, there- 
fore, is to use the outside floret, both disk and ray, 
for show and for pollen bearing, not for seed. As a 
matter of curiosity, I am trying to reverse this pro- 
cess and breed from the outside florets alone; but 1 
do not know what I shall get by so reversing the 
economics of the flower. I mention it as the widest 
reversal of fertilization in a single Dahlia; but partly, 
also, because it is a leading instance of what we do in 
making seed in a perfectly double cactus or show or 
decorative Dahlia. 
In the perfectly double flower with a “good” 
centre, there is no pollen at all. In many cactus 
varieties with long, tubular florets the pistil is 
present and perfect in almost every ray, outside or 
inside, but so wrapped up in the abnormal petal that 
no pollen-laden bee could get to it if he visited the 
bloom. In many decoratives (though the petal is 
scoop shaped and the pistil is more exposed at the 
base of each floret) so closely do the petals of each 
inner ring lap down over the base that insect fertili- 
zation is utterly inconvenient and most rare. Thus 
the best type of the florist’s Dahlia will not bear seed 
at all, left to itself. But if one takes a small pair of 
{Continued on page j( 5 ) 
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